To Keep Moving On
by Noxhine
Summary: Sequel to 'To Move On', follows the events of the Newdirectioners in their not-always-so-successful attempts to go forward with their lives. See Rachel involved in a story she shouldn't be in, Blaine trying to find himself on his way out of the WMHS, Santana bitching at her best and all the others conquering (or not) their move-ons.
1. Here we go again

**Quick introduction: last summer I wrote my first fanfic ( s/8370729/1/To-move-on) a pilot experiment and personal desire of the events post season 3 and throughout this whole year I've been writing this sequel. It has been way more insightful and I've tried my best to keep this story apart from season 4, but there are some coincidences (songs I promise I had planned on including here before they were on Glee, pinky swear) I just couldn't avoid.**

**Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. Another 29 chapters, 'previously on' included.**

* * *

So here's what you've missed on To Move On: stop reading, what's the use? Go read the first part, don't spoil it. 29 chapters, they're good stuff. Now, the real deal:

So here's what you read in To Move On and you have probably forgotten: Finn and Rachel talked over the summer, and somehow Rachel said that she'd come back to Lima for Finn, Finn didn't get it, and he didn't come back from Fort Benning, so Rachel spent half of her summer all by herself with the Berry dads after she asked for a gap year at NYADA.

Rachel's decision left an open stop at the academy, so the first one on the waitlist got in by surprise: Kurt Hummel. Before he left to New York, Blaine talked to Finn and followed his advice of 'letting the loved one free to pursue his dreams'; in other words, Blaine Finned Kurt and broke up with him at the airport. So Porcelain rented an apartment in the capital of the modern world. With Santana. Yes. Kurt and Santana.

A new year began at McKinley High School and Rachel enrolled back, this time taking Spanish classes in the afternoon. Nobody ever saw her attending any of them, but it was the perfect excuse to claim back her throne in New Directions, unleashing the madness of a Tina Cohen-Chang that had planned her senior year to take place under a constant spotlight. Madness, craziness, pathological psychosis, anything you want to call it.

As I was saying, Rachel's back and nobody wants her there hoarding solos. Except for the solo hoarder himself, Blaine, who turned out to be the one, only and main support of the diva. Artie was too busy trying to fight for the leadership of the choir and failing in the attempt; Tina, as already said, wanted to take Berry's eyes out; Brittany didn't care at all, she was busy enough dealing with her cat and keeping her relationship afloat; and neither Sam, Sugar, Rory nor Joe ever got too close to Rachel, so they didn't give a shit about her being in or out, plain and simple.

Meanwhile, Mr. Shue had to deal with another problem: finding new members, which now that I think about it is kind of a tradition already. 'New' faces: Sebastian, who came from Dalton to steal Blaine's heart/pants; Santana, who pulled a Berry and rejoined when she got a lazily photoshopped disturbing picture of Rachel and Brittany making out… Oh, I have to explain that too: Why did Sebastian do that? Because Rachel and Blaine had bonded a little bit too much, to the point that the flames of what was born during the Rachel Berry House Party Train Wreck Extravaganza came back to life and the little Warbler wasn't that 100% gay in the end.

So, up to here they were 11, one more needed to compete, but a lot of stuff happened before that; for example, Finn's visit after one month and a half. He appeared at Rachel's doorstep while she was making out/figuring things out with her new/not-so-new love interest. She slammed the door in his face.

Why did Finn come back to Lima then? Does his brain work as slowly as stated by Santana? No, he came back to get married. What?! Yes, what you read. After that goddamn phone call with Rachel, he went to Cali and paid a visit to his best bro. He stayed with Puckerman a couple weeks. No, it wasn't a Pinn wedding, it was a Fuinn wedding. What?! Yes, what you read again. Quinn was supposed to finish what he started with Puck before his final Geography exam and ended up in a Jacuzzi with her first man. Crazy, huh? Lindsay Lohan es bien loca, but Quinn Fabray even more, because she went all Beyoncé on Finny and put a ring on it. Going to the chapel of love one month later, bitches.

So the fiancés are back, making jaws drop as they handed out wedding invitations all over the high school. I'll skip the part where Rachel cries and serenades Finn with 'Woman in Love' in the middle of his street, Santana allies with her to take down that engagement by sleeping with the groom (just sleeping, sharing the same bed during the night, no intercourse), and bla bla bla.

The wedding issue: everybody is at the wedding but Sebastian, who had neither a say nor a do there, and Joe, who still had feelings for the blonde. And when I say everybody, that includes a Glee reunion, Puckerman included, who kissed the bride right after she walked down the aisle. Santana's crappy sabotage plan reached its climax with Shelby's appearance, who was carrying a crying Beth, and not even that was enough. The bitch is tough and she went all the way down with the 'I do.' And Finn, who was clearly and openly in love with Rachel, said that dreadful 'I do' too, because his morals didn't allow him to dump the messed up teen mom again.

Anyway, the party started, Rachel got drunk as hell and she ended up talking more than she should have. Things got ugly, Santana and Brittany had a crisis because the first one was keeping things from the dummy one in order to take Quinn down (and, ironically, Quinn was the one who took Santana down via bitchslap)… but they made it up.

Where was I? Oh, yes, Rachel got drunk, lots of things were said and sung, including Katy Perry's 'The One That Got Away' from Blaine to Rachel and 'My Heart Will Go On' from Rachel to Finn, awkward as hell, but finally the groom flew away and dropped his ring. Wedding over, raging Fabray, hungover Berry and broken-up Brittana. Why 'broken-up Brittana'? Long argument short: "You think I'm dumb and you don't trust me with your schemes with Rachel", "You are the thing I love the most, don't be like that", "You failed me, I'm gone."

The following week was kind of… curious. The kids got their Sectionals moved earlier, so they had to put up a show in less than a week one member short, besides the fact that they had a depressive/sexually-hungry Santana (keep that in mind), Blaine and Rachel having some awkwardness troubles and Artie sent to social exile. Artie, the loser by definition. Oh, I forgot to tell you why the New Directions' boys turned his back on him: Tina went all attention whore at the wedding and burst out that she and Wheels had been "having fun" while she was with Mike Chang. Whatever. She was lying. Mike Finned her and there was no cheating at all, so, according to the popular custom, we'll move to another subject and don't pay any more attention to Tina.

Have you kept in mind the horny Santana thing? Whether you have or not, here's the deal: she banged Sebastian. Yes, the allegedly gay Santana went all Lima Heights (in the dirty way) on the dick hunter Sebastian Smythe. It's called the Scandals effect. But it was just a one-night thing and nothing else. We all hope. Too much evil in one bed. God protect us from a child born of those two.

In another order of business: Finnerboy came back a couple days later. Once Fabray-free, he started an offensive to get Berry back. And, by offensive, let's say that he serenaded Rachel back while, wait for it, she was crying on her bed with Blaine right after he declared the shit out of himself. Hell yes, the little gelled up lovebird grew balls and went to Rachel's right after he and Finn had a bro-talk. Bros? Bros my ass. Actually, Berry's ass, which was the cause of the fight. Sneaky tiny bastard. Whatever, the diva got two magnificent ego boosts in less than ten minutes and then it was all up to her.

The day after the pity party the Blaichel had in that excessively pink bedroom it was as awkward as it could be. Well… not awkward awkward, just… how to say it? Intervention-y. Santana did her magic on Rachel, Sebastian did his on Blaine (not 'that' kind of magic, you pervs) and they ended up with an Adele song and the resolution of one of, as the whole school calls it even today, the most annoying sexual crises ever. Funny thing? After Blaine openly admitted he wasn't as gay as everybody thought he was, he ended up with Sebastian once he had given up on Rachel.

So Sebastian got Blaine, it couldn't be clearer that his thing with Santana didn't mean a thing, and the Brittana got restored thanks to the magical intervention of Lord Tubbington. 'Magical' according to Brittany, obviously. 'The damn cat weighs a ton and he stepped on my boobs again' according to Santana. They made up, happily ever after. Teen lesbian love is so perfect. One couple crisis solved. Barely believable.

Before I forget: Sectionals thing. Guess who was the 12th member they needed? Just when Rachel had made her choice, Mr. Jesse St. James comes back from hell to give the losers a hand. Well, a hand with a contract that assured him the main role of the Broadway musical Shelby Corcoran was putting up. They had fights over the solos, usual New Directions stuff, but they win with a little help from the alumni. Yay.

Since nice traditions must be preserved, Sue, who surprisingly didn't stand in Will's kids' way too much, got into labor before the announcement of the winner. Once the captains had picked the trophy, everybody went down to the hospital. And by everybody I mean even the ones that should be long gone. And by that I mean Quinn, whose experience wasn't even worth a fuck to Sue, but her presence led us to the last one of the serenades. A serenade that leads me to think that they are overusing stupid love songs to say what they feel (or shouldn't be feeling). Who serenaded who? Puck She-will-be-loved the Queen of the Evil Bitches, her panties dropped to the ground because she got to be the center of attention for once and she got distracted from killing Rachel, which was a great relief for everyone. At least temporarily.

The natural order of things got restored: Finn and Rachel, Puck and Quinn, Brittany and Santana, Blaine and a dude… There was only one thing left to do: every pig to his sty. Rachel moved back to New York with Finn, where she would wait patiently to attend NYADA the following year without interfering with the Lima arcs, and her man would work with Shelby on the writing of the musical. Again, if the natural order of things got restored, Santana's duty was fulfilled, so she came back to NYC with Rachel, Rachel's unconditional friendship and a gift from the diva: the female main role on her mom's musical. Nothing like nepotism to build a decent Broadway show.

And… well… that's kind of everything that happened. Oh, no, this wasn't the way this previously was supposed to end. This is the good one:

And that's what you've missed on To Move On!

* * *

**1. Here we go again**

"We're here. We're here. We're here!"

Rachel and Kurt walked down the halls of the William McKinley High School arm in arm, as if the eleven months following their graduation had actually never happened.

The girl, in a plated gray skirt and her navy blue sweater with the big yellow ribbon printed on the middle, hopped and giggled as she recalled every moment lived next to those lockers. "Oh! The board where I signed in for my audition for Glee Club!"

"We," Kurt corrected.

"Where I signed for my first Nationals solo!"

"We, and you didn't make it that time."

"Where I got my role for Maria." She turned to Kurt to give him a cold, but playful, look. "You too?"

They kept on with their tour. "Oh! The cafeteria! Oh! The gymnasium! My prom crowning…" Her face turned into a foolish grin as her eyes watched her and Finn dancing to Quinn and Santana's 'Take My Breath Away'.

"And mine," Kurt kept rectifying Rachel. "And if you mention the cafeteria, 'oh' to the food poisoning _we_ both…" he stressed the plural, "got after the Indi-fusion author's cuisine that Figgins imposed in '09."

"I am a lady and I don't talk about my bowel sufferings."

But the biggest 'oh' didn't come until the pair arrived at the choir room. The door was closed, so they stood outside for a minute, watching what once was their home through the door glass. The kids cocked their heads to the left as they stared at the performance that was taking place in the middle of the room.

"Oh! Blaine singing a solo," Rachel said, brimming with memories and nostalgia.

Kurt nodded absent-mindedly. There he was. The boy without the bowtie. An inch taller. A ton prettier. Filling the room with his talent. Filling Kurt's mind with moments of sweet tenderness. As if he was lying on Blaine's bed, watching him rehearse his 'Something's Coming' over and over again.

"Be nice, okay?" Rachel said as the tiny Warbler was getting his standing ovation. Well, it wasn't standing. Actually, it wasn't even an ovation. Just a few lazy claps given by the inertial force that moved the hands to run into each other once the music had stopped playing.

Kurt smiled. "I am nice. We ended up alright. No hard feelings, no harm done."

"You hated me for… like a month." Rachel was the one with the correction power this time. "Anyway," she said as she let go of Kurt's arm, "we're here to teach these poor lost-in-life kids how to make it to the stardom. First of all, a powerful entrance. You, me and Barbra."

"It wasn't hate, it was just despair. You're not the only one entitled to go all drama queen from time to time."

"From time to time?" Rachel interrupted him, offended. "My life is full with unexpected twists that leave me totally devastated. You might be content with your monthly nighttime crying, but Rachel Barbra Berry deserves more than emotional mediocrity." Trust me, the girl is not exaggerating at all. Stay tuned.

"Are you listening to yourself?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. I'm kinda nervous. Shut up, don't distract me." She started going through her phone, looking for the instrumental version of 'As If We Never Said Goodbye'. "Okay." She hit play.

"Oh, no, no. I already did that."

Her jaw dropped to the floor as she took an outraged hand to her chest. "You what?! You don't get to sing Barbra without my previous and signed consent!"

"You were there when I sang it." Kurt's frown was starting to leave a mark on his pale forehead.

She pointed at her friend with an accusatory finger. "I might have forgotten about it, and maybe even enjoyed it at that moment, but you will pay for this, mister. I don't have an entrance song now. Thank you so much."

"Come on! It was when I transferred back from Dalton! Nobody will remember it by now!" He tried to downplay the issue.

"I won't eat your stolen musical sloppy seconds."

"You did Blaine."

She gave Kurt a hair flop that hit him in his whole face. Rachel opened the door and walked in, interrupting Will's speech. "I'm back!" She made a brief pause as all the kids in the room stared at her with looks in which 'can you be any more egocentric?' could be perfectly read. "And Kurt too, but he doesn't deserve the recognition," she finished with a less eager tone.

"We've been hearing your discussion about the return solo issue, and you made it to let us know that you haven't change a bit," Artie sentenced from his usual spot on the far left next to the band boys.

Sitting next the boy with the wheelchair, Tina Cohen-Chang was trying to remain calm and not to resort to the 'control measurements' she had prepared in case of the so-called Berry Comeback.

Two seats to the right, there was Sugar, holding hands with Joe. "Oh, so… this… is…" Kurt tried to find the words, but it was way easier to say hello to Brittany, who was sitting on the back row. "Hey, Brit! Santana sends…"

He couldn't finish the duty he was entrusted with. Brittany leaped on the boy, wrapped her legs around his waist and started sniffing at his neck. "You smell like her!"

Sam and Rory made it to pull Britt away from Kurt as they distracted her with Santana's old uniform. "We keep it for when she misses her too much," the blond explained. Rory kept on with the story of the procedure they ended up getting used to, but neither Rachel nor Kurt understood a word he said, so they just nodded with blinking shocked eyes.

When everyone sat, they focused again on the faces left behind so long ago. But who were they kidding? Both of them didn't give a shit for anyone in that room but the boy with the puppy eyes.

Blaine stood with a grin on his face as he walked towards Rachel. The slight grin became an ear-to-ear smile, and the firm steps led to a tight, tight and warm hug. Rachel wrapped her arms around Blaine's waist back, closing her eyes as she smelled the sweet cologne on his collar. "I've missed you," Blaine whispered.

"Oh, please, you went to New York last month. And the month before. And the month before that." Kurt rolled his eyes, bugged about not being hugged the first or… just hugged by the short boy.

Blaine and Rachel let go of the hug as the first one gave Hummel a reprehending look. "You have her all year long; I only do one out of four weekends." Blaine moved to hug Kurt. It wasn't a hug as long or tight as the one he gave to Rachel, but polite enough. Right enough.

"Nice to see you, Blaine." Kurt smiled back.

"And nice to see you too, Rachel," Jacob Ben Israel said as he took pictures of the diva.

Rachel frowned really hard. "What… what is he doing here?" she asked, ready to run away in case he did the same move Brittany did to Kurt.

"That's the best our fifth round of recruiting did," Will said as he put his hands on both Kurt and Rachel's shoulders. "Well, Jacob, and her." He pointed at a brunette girl with a dark green beret who was sitting in the far right corner. She smiled shyly as she waved her hand. "Her name is Marley Rose and she's… kind of our new Rachel."

"I am the New Rachel," Blaine and Tina answered in unison.

Rachel looked at them. "And I am here. Why didn't you tell me about her? Or about Jacob?"

"Yes, Blaine, why didn't you tell Rachel anything about the Glee Club during one of your daily one-hour-long Skype talks?" Sebastian walked into the choir room thirty-two minutes after the class had started. He sat on the back row. "Sorry I'm this late; I was doing a random boy in the bathroom, which is way more worthy of admiration than being completely devoted to a half-married chick who's across the country." Sebastian raised his hand before Will could even start talking. "And don't tell me that I could get expelled due to 'inappropriate behavior', because I'm gay and that would be a hate crime."

"You nailed Santana," Kurt said contemptuously, making a face as he watched his archenemy attacking the ex-love-of-his-life.

"Oh, Lady Hummel, I hadn't seen you. You know, since we painted the walls white it's kind of difficult to notice people like you. And don't say that that's racist, because the problem is that you have a disease, right, Bella?"

"When did he become the head bitch in charge? And, again, why didn't you tell me about everything that's going on in here?" Rachel asked again, looking inquisitively at Blaine.

Tina stood up and walked towards Rachel as she pushed Blaine away. "Please, let me do the honors, I want to see Berry's face decomposing."

"I left. You know you shouldn't be hating me any longer, don't you?" Rachel answered as she stepped back, trying to put some distance between her face and Tina's.

"Oh, yes, but I'm gonna crush you next year in NYADA, so I want to start getting used to your eyes crying tears of blood every time I open my mouth, with or without music in the background. Ready?" She had the craziest eyes ever seen.

"Always ready, I'll sing everything back into place once you're finished tearing me down." She smirked, pretty sure of herself. 'Realistic,' as she would have said.

Tina took a deep breath and started with her string. "The day after you went back to New York, I was crowned as the rightful captain of the New Directions."

"Yes, I know, I made that happen," Rachel interrupted, recalling the letter he gave to Blaine the day she left, in which she gave the role down to Tina.

"She didn't need that. She staged a coup d'état even before I arrived," Blaine said.

"Little Blaine is right, but do not interrupt me ever again." Tina pressed her finger against Rachel's forehead. "I let him be my vice-captain given the fact that he put up no resistance, and we started looking for replacements for you and Santana."

"And the twelfth member you were supposed to find for Sectionals before Mr. Shue had to hire Jesse," Rachel pointed out.

"Did I tell you that you could interrupt me?!" Tina shouted out of herself. She took another deep breath and unclenched her fists. "And so we did: five open auditions and only one candidate. Her." She turned her head to Marley. "Now you can talk."

"I don't need your permission to talk," Rachel answered, outraged.

"You do need it if you don't want to crawl back home with your feet into your mouth."

Kurt took Rachel away from Tina, slowly and without provoking the psycho Asian. "Let's just pretend that we haven't heard anything and just introduce ourselves." He held his hand out once they made their way to the right corner of the choir room. "Kurt Hummel, nice to meet you."

Marley shook it. "My pleasure. You two are very important names in here."

"Mostly me, but you remaining a secret for us intrigues me more than the fact that my legacy hasn't been corrupted by some crazy wannabes." Rachel shook Marley's hand right after Kurt.

Jacob tried to hold Rachel's hand as well, but she pulled it away, just grossed out just by the thought of what those filthy hands would have been doing, touching or trying to recreate with an inflatable doll and the panties she was extorted to give him four years ago. "Oh, come on! I'm a Glee fella now!" Jacob complained.

"You're still as disgusting as you were the day I left. But I don't care about that, because it's your nature and I respect that." She petted Jacob's afro and turned to the class. "New York has taught me that I have to tolerate every single person in this disparate world, and then I will be treated as right as I did with everyone else."

"Okay, Sister Mary Berry, sit down and let the girl show you how we won Regionals," Sebastian said as he put his hands behind his head and his feet on the chair opposite to his.

"Well, let's see what you got, Carly." Rachel smiled warmly as she invited the girl to the center of the choir room.

"It's Marley," she corrected her while everyone else sat down.

Rachel leaned to the left to talk to Kurt. "Did you know?"

"No. And if nobody has told you…"

"It's because whether she's a pariah or I could be actually dethroned as the living legend that raised the New Directions to their one and only National championship of the century. And in the worst-case scenario, the secret would have been kept away from me because they didn't want me to suffer from the distance or because they wanted to see me fall down in the middle of my magnificent comeback." She turned to look at her best friend. "You're a love, Blainey." Wrong.

_[Tell him – Celine Dion & Barbra Streisand]_

_Marley:  
I'm scared, so afraid to show I care.  
Will he think me weak if I tremble when I speak?_

Rachel was swimming in a sea of pure amazement and fear, holding both Blaine and Kurt's hands. Actually, squeezing her anger out on them.

_Marley:  
Oh, what if there's another one he's thinking of?  
Maybe he's in love, I'd feel like a fool.  
Life can be so cruel. I don't know what to do._

And the living legend stood up. "Impromptu diva off. Love it." Will rubbed his hands together. He really enjoyed the musical cat fights in his choir room. Way classier than the usual teen drama.

_Rachel:  
I've been there with my heart out in my hand.  
But what you must understand  
you can't let the chance to love him pass you by._

_Marley and Rachel:  
Tell him, tell him that the sun and moon rise in his eyes.  
Reach out to him.  
And whisper tender words so soft and sweet._

_Marley:  
I'll hold him close to feel his heartbeat._

_Rachel:  
Love will be the gift you give yourself._

Both of them stood next to each other, looking into their eyes from time to time. Marley, feeling honored to have the chance to sing with the original Rachel. Rachel, feeling not as awkward or threatened as she thought she would feel.

_Rachel:  
Touch him with the gentleness you feel inside._

_Marley:  
I feel it._

_Rachel:  
Your love can't be denied. The truth will set you free.  
You'll have what's meant to be. All in time you'll see._

_Marley:  
Ooh, I love him._

_Rachel:  
Then show him._

_Marley:  
Of that much I can be sure._

_Rachel:  
Hold him close to you._

_Marley:  
I don't think I could endure if I let him walk away  
when I have so much to say._

_Marley and Rachel:  
Tell him, tell him that the sun and moon rise in his eyes.  
Reach out to him.  
And whisper tender words so soft and sweet._

_Rachel:  
Hold him close to feel his heartbeat._

_Marley:  
Love will be the gift you give yourself._

_Love is a light that truly glows_  
_in the hearts of those who know._  
_It's a steady flame that grows._

_Rachel:  
Feed the fire with all the passion you can show._

_Marley:  
Tonight love will assume its place._

_Rachel:  
This memory time cannot erase._

The girls held each other's hands.

_Marley and Rachel:  
Your faith will lead love where it has to go._

_Tell him, tell him that the sun and moon rise in his eyes._  
_Reach out to him._  
_And whisper, whisper words so soft and sweet._  
_Hold him close to feel his heart beat._  
_Love will be the gift you give yourself_

_Ooh, never let him go._

Rachel dried the tears from her eyes with her index fingers, trying not to get her mascara all smudged. She hadn't sung a powerful ballad without thinking of her Finn in the last eleven months, and that one wasn't the exception. "You have quite a voice, Charlie."

"Thanks." Marley blushed as she sat next to Blaine in the middle of, this time, the real standing ovation.

"Come on! Go there and take your bow." Blaine pushed her back to the center of the choir room.

Rachel held Marley's hand again as they took their bow. "She's talented, nice and doesn't try to steal a spotlight that doesn't belong to her. This is a keep, people." Rachel smiled widely. Relieved, actually.

The contenders finally sat down and the reduced audience stopped applauding. "It could have been way worse, don't you think?" Rachel asked Kurt as both his eyes and mouth fell right into the basement of the school. "What?"

Kurt pointed to Rachel's right, and when she turned her head, her face shift into the same expression as Kurt's.

Tina took a picture with her phone of the speechless New Yorkers. "That was the face I was looking for!" She took another picture of the kids on their right, just to make a pretty expressive collage that told the whole story by itself.

And Blaine and Marley let go of their hands.


	2. Master class

**2. Master class**

"Class dismissed," Will Schuester announced after the bell rang. A long class, though Kurt and Rachel came in the middle of it. And an awkward class. Very awkward class. Rachel couldn't stop looking at Marley. Marley couldn't stop holding hands with her "special friend," Blaine couldn't stop feeling guilty for not telling Rachel about it, and it was incredibly funny for the rest of the people in the room.

The two New Yorkers were supposed to give a master class of 'How to get into NYADA and not die trying' after Glee, but… somehow they weren't feeling like it. So they just stayed there, one next to the other, not moving, not talking, and even barely breathing. Until the silence was broken. "Did you know about this?" Rachel asked.

Kurt shook his head. "You really think I would keep something like that from you?" He turned to look at Rachel's face. "Are you… really… upset?"

Rachel felt the frown that Kurt was making without even seeing it. She took a deep breath and smiled. "I am. But not because I… you know, not from a romantic perspective. You know?"

"Because he's your friend and he didn't trust you his secret? Been there, sister." Kurt held the diva's hand.

Then she recalled the whole Fall Debacle. The kiss with Blaine, the secret, the face-off when Kurt found out, the struggle to finally let Blaine go… the tears, the sing-your-heart-outs… the choice. And Finn's face at the end of the tunnel.

"We have some lost boys to enlighten with our success, don't we?" Rachel stood, tugging down her skirt and fighting against her yearning to crying.

* * *

Blaine and Marley walked to the exit door, holding hands and swinging their arms with every step they made. "Why don't you stay? You might learn a few things from Kurt and Rachel," the boy said as he stopped their march.

Marley looked into her man's eyes tenderly. "Because this is about you, your friends, your future…"

They kissed before the girl said goodbye and left the school. When he turned around to head to the auditorium, but he got ambushed on his way.

"Blaine Warbler, we need to talk."

Brittany was standing in the middle of the hallway with her hands on her hips and a face that kind of showed anger and a need to pee.

"Okay…" Blaine answered, doubtful.

"I knew this day would come, so I'm like a prophet, and you better listen to me very carefully." Her eyes were open to a point where it had to be really painful for the blonde girl. "Do not play with the natural order of Cosmos, Blaine Warbler. Do not alter the peaceful state of Nature. You know the consequences. And this is 2012. Do not take any chances."

Blaine burst into laughter as he resumed his way. "Brittany, you have to stop listening to Santana's apocalyptic vision of the world. And this is 2013. May 2013. The whole 2012 thing is kind of out of order."

"Santana's apocalyptic vision of your relationship with Rachel." The girl followed suit. It was easy, considering Blaine's not particularly long legs.

"I am with Marley."

"With whom Rachel doesn't share any resemblance at all."

Blaine froze. Then he was the one with his eyeballs about to fall to the dirty floor of the McKinley High School. "Where did you learn sarcasm?"

"Santana says that I can't graduate without knowing the ancient art of being a bitch, because I am too sweet, lovely and adorable to go out on the harsh, cold and evil world not being able to defend myself. At least verbally. I still have my riffle in case of a bear attack or Lord Tubbington's rebellion."

"Okay, even though you're carrying a gun, I'll say that you don't need to go all Bitchtana on me, because I… like Marley, I am happy with her, and the flames of my romance with Rachel are totally cold. Eskimo cold."

Brittany smiled. "Oh, don't worry about that. She told me to call her the minute I saw the equilibrium of the country endangered. So… she's on her way."

* * *

Tina and Blaine sat in the front row, the two of them being the only attendants to Kurt and Rachel's master class. The boy, with a notebook in his hands; and the girl, chewing gum, with no visible interest at all.

"Hello everyone," Rachel started, standing on the center of the stage, getting warmer at the caress of the spotlights on her face.

The other girl chuckled. "'Everyone' says…" The pun echoed in the empty auditorium.

"Hello, Blaine. Hello, coarse imitation of myself. Looks like Chinese manufactures didn't have enough with clothes and toys so they started trying to copy people."

"Racist!" Tina yelled, outraged and standing from her seat.

"You deserved it." Rachel shrugged, sticking to the graphic representation of 'not giving a shit.'

The girl sat back down, making a face and laughing. "Actually I did."

"Getting into NYADA is all about confidence and showing off what you've got. And, very important, do not forget the lyrics of your song, you have to sing it by heart." The only thing Kurt received for that hurtful pun was another (of the already many) cold hard look from Mrs. Berry, who jumped off the stage with two microphones in her hands.

Each one of the mentees took their mic and climbed up to stand next to Kurt. "Okay, show us what you've got, and let's see if you are fit to follow Mr. Hummel's road to the almost-made-it success," Rachel struck back.

She and Kurt sat on the still warm seats, adopting a judge-alike position. "This feels really… Americanidolic, don't you think?" Both of them chuckled as they took little notebooks and pens full of feathers and glitter out of their bags. Attempt at glamour results in tackiness.

"So you just want us to sing and…?" Blaine asked shyly.

"Oh, please, like it would be like putting you through a hard time," Tina replied, incensed. "Hit it!"

Everything remained silent for ten awkward seconds. "There's no band," Rachel finally pointed out.

Tina climbed down, brought her iPod out of her jacket and attached it to the speaker that was on the top of the piano. She chose the song, hit play and 'Gangnam Style' filled the auditorium and the perplexed ears of the present therein.

"What the h…" the other three teenagers said at the same time.

Eventually, Tina managed to find the track she was looking for. But not after being an object of long and frowny judgemental looks along with comments about the allegedly technology skills of Asian population.

_[Come what may – Moulin Rouge Cast]_

"Showtune," Rachel noted as she wrote it down.

"Incredibly wise choice," Kurt added.

_Blaine:  
Never knew I could feel like this.  
Like I´ve never seen the sky before._

Rachel sighed, looking up at the boy on stage and letting her flashy pen drop to the floor with a smile full of pride and joy.

_Blaine:  
I want to vanish inside your kiss.  
Every day I love more and more._

Kurt turned his head to his friend and no words were needed to comprehend what was going through their heads. "Hell, I missed this sound," he thought.

_Tina:  
Listen to my heart. Can you hear? It sings  
telling me to give you everything.  
Seasons may change, winter to spring._

The mentors nodded, surprised about Tina's vocal improvement. Rachel tried to note it down on her notebook, but she didn't find her pen. Blaine chuckled at the clumsy girl from the stage, right before his eyes got on the way of Kurt's.

_Tina:  
But I love you until the end of time._

Blaine and Tina:  
Come what may.  
Come what may.  
I will love you until my dying day.

Kurt and Rachel threw their notebooks away and stood up, walking onto the stage.

_Rachel:  
Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place._

_Kurt:  
Suddenly it moves with such a perfect grace._

_Kurt and Rachel:  
Suddenly my life doesn't seem such a waste._

_Kurt:  
But our world revolves around you._

Blaine held Rachel's hand as she got near him.

_Blaine and Rachel:  
And there's no mountain too high._

_Kurt and Tina:  
No river too wide._

_Blaine and Rachel:  
Sing out this song and I'll be there by your side._

_Kurt and Tina:  
Storm clouds may gather and stars may collide._

Kurt wrapped his arm around Tina's waist, smiling and transmitting his confidence to his mentee.

_Blaine:  
But I love you._

_Tina:  
I love you._

_Blaine and Tina:  
Until the end of time._

Blaine, Kurt, Rachel and Tina:  
Come what may.  
Come what may.  
I will love you until my dying day.

Oh, come what may.  
Come what may.  
I will love you.

_Tina:  
I will love you._

_Rachel and Tina:  
Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place._

_Blaine, Kurt, Rachel and Tina:  
Come what may.  
Come what may.  
I will love you until my dying day._

"You! Rachel Barbra Berry for God's sake get off that stage right now! Frodo! Ten steps back. Now!" Santana burst into the auditorium, kicking the door open Chuck Norris style. "Out! Out! I said out! Oh God, this is not going to happen again. 'Come What May'?! Seriously?!" She kept cursing on her way to the stage, running down the stairs, almost falling and rolling down due to her impressively high heels. "Come on! What are you waiting for? Do I need to bring a police siren too? Out of that stage! Now!"

Everybody was totally freaked out by Santana's entrance. Blaine quickly let go of Rachel's hand as she walked down the stage, slowly and exponentially more calmed down than her best friend. "What are you doing here?" Rachel asked with a chuckle.

"Preventing another hell on Earth." Santana pointed an accusatory finger at the short male leader of New Directions. "And I said ten steps back. Do you want me to set your head on fire? Because I'm pretty sure that that hair of yours is more than inflammable. And you!" She moved her finger full of rage to Kurt. "What kind of God-given reason led you to let her sing the goddamned 'Come What May' with Little Mister Bowties?"

"Oh, come on, stop overreacting, it was just a double duet. Not like I let them alone in the broom closet," Kurt answered.

Santana grabbed Rachel by the wrist and tried to take her out of the auditorium. "We're going. Hell we are going!"

Tina laughed at the show. "Oh my, could you be even more ridiculous? You have a guardian? Rachel, you were huge once. _Once_," she stressed.

Rachel stopped moving, pushing Santana away. "Are you serious? Are you really trying to guard me against… against what?" Confusion was not enough to describe how weird that situation was for the diva.

"It got serious when I had to take a plane and come back here. That's serious," Santana answered.

Blaine climbed down the stage, walking towards the New Yorkers. "The question is: how did you get here so soon if Brittany told me that she was going to tell you like… thirty minutes ago?"

"Do you really think that I'd let Rachel come to see you without Hudson's supervision and stay don't-know-how-many miles away waiting for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to ride down Park Avenue?" Santana took her left shoe off slowly. "I took the first flight after Glinda and Elphaba's and just waited patiently for my lady to ring the warning bells." She held the shoe by the middle of it and raised it in the air. "And, if you don't go ten fucking steps back, I swear to God that I'll finish Sebastian's work on that eye of yours."

"Oh my God, I've been sleeping at Rachel's once a month since you left to New York! Santana, you're out of your mind!" Blaine replied.

"Please, you don't have the balls to make a move on Berry under Finny Flubber's roof. But now she's in your field, with nothing but a negligent gay who you can take down by licking his face to keep an eye on her." Santana started walking towards Blaine. At least they got Tina to record everything, because Santana walking in only one five-inch-high shoe while threatening Little Blaine with the other heel was definitely priceless.

Rachel stormed out of the auditorium. She had had the most amazing months of her life in New York and she was back in her hometown just because she wanted to help her friends, not to put up with more old and dry shit. "It's over. So over. Overest," she kept repeating to herself as she practically ran her way out of the school.

"Are you being robbed? Is there a fire? Couldn't you dismantle the bomb Rory set under the school? I'm pretty sure he's an undercover terrorist in our country sent to bring the end of the Capitalism days," Brittany said as she walked out of the bathroom and found Rachel leaving the building. "I've been studying a lot. I say it because, even though you're such a rude person and don't even bother asking how I'm doing, I am more than a support character in this play we call life."

Ten steps ahead of the blonde by, Rachel had no other option but to stop, turn around and get closer to Brittany. "Okay, Brittany, I promise we'll have a catch-up later, although you and I never had a really close relationship, but if you really need that, I'm willing to sacrifice myself to make you happy, because that's what idols are for."

"I've witnessed every single emotional reversal you have gone through for the last four years. And especially this last one, during which you've hoarded my girlfriend, turning her into some kind of slave of your sentimental becoming. And I've complained zero. She is my best friend, and somehow you turned her into yours. But I respect it, because you two share city, world and landlord. The least you could do is to pay some respect to me."

Brittany's face didn't show anger, madness or despair. Just her usual inexpressive face, given the fact that thinking all those words probably required almost the full performance of her brain activity, just setting aside a minimum quantity of energy to keep breathing. Rachel realized that the not-so-dummy had a point. Everybody spent her whole academic life neglecting Tina, or at least saying so. And the truly neglected, the girl that was never kept in mind was Brittany. Poor poor Brittany S. Pierce.

"Can you teach me how to storm out?" Brittany asked with puppy eyes after a long silence, throughout which Rachel processed the girl's statement.

Berry chuckled and got closer. "Okay. You have to open your eyes as much as you can, until they hurt. And you look at the other person like you want to shoot them at him/her/me in this case. Then you take a deep and dramatic breath, turn around with a hair flip, look for the closest exit, go through the door and slam it as if you were trying to decapitate a person with it. I know the example is kind of macabre, but if you picture the other person's neck between the door and the frame, the slam is way harder." Rachel chuckled before turning her face into an open-eyed mad expression as the one she described before. "TM and registered."

Brittany and Rachel left the building together, enjoying each other's company, under the watchful eye of Kurt and Santana. The roommates stood in the middle of the hallway. "From one to the Olsen Twins, how fucked up do you think this is going to get?" Kurt asked slowly, with his eyes almost closed.

"Lindsay Lohan." Santana sighed.


	3. Catch up

**3. Catch up**

"I knew you'd come back crawling for me." Sebastian took a sit at Kurt and Santana's table. The Lima Bean was crowded with Warblers and other species of coffeholics. "I meant her, not you, don't think… Nah, I'm sure you are smart enough, Princess," he said to Kurt with his fakest and whitest smile.

"So not nice to see you," the offended one replied. "And as I was saying, Santana," he emphasized trying to get rid of Sebastian, "I don't know why the heck we keep coming here. Especially when we know the kind of dregs that overrun this place."

"Shut up, I called him," the girl replied.

Sebastian sat next to Santana, wearing his most mischievous grin, as usual. "So glad you did, my dear bitch." He held her hand on the table and rubbed his thumb against one of her rings.

"Do you know how many times I had to sterilize her when she came back home?" Kurt said as he threw one of those killer looks at their hands.

Santana pulled back. "Nothing personal, my sweet little piece of burning hell, but I don't want to go through six showers of scolding steam again to sit on my own couch." She petted her one-night-thing's face. "Okay, I called this magnificent bastard for a reason." Santana turned to Sebastian. "Tell him everything you've seen, done, experienced, suffered and puked at during these months."

"Well…"

"No," Kurt interrupted him. "I mean, why do I want to hear the version of this renowned liar, scheme-master and sexual predator when I have actual friends for me to catch up with? No offense, it's just… I despise you with my whole bare soul."

"They are all a bunch of corrupt kids. Hiding a secret. And their silence is well bought." Sebastian raised his eyebrows, trying to create an atmosphere of mystery.

Santana rolled his eyes and slapped Sebastian playfully. "What my pretty little liar is saying is that Blainey Boo traded solos for silence. He didn't want either you or Berry to find out his ménage à clone."

"Then why did you call me if you're telling the story?!" Sebastian inquired. "So, me and Blaine lasted till… his sixth visit to New York."

Kurt did the math using the fingers of his hand. "So you didn't survive Christmas."

"Yes, because Rachel came back to spend the holidays in Lima. We broke up in mid-January," the former lead of the Warblers kept on. "Huge fight. 'Why can't you say that you still love her?!' 'Because I don't! She's just my best friend!' 'Don't be ridiculous!' 'You are the one being ridiculous here!' 'No, I am being abandoned every two freaking weeks!' 'How many times have I told you to come with me?!' 'So nice of you to invite me to crash on the couch of a happy couple as you try to get the girl!' 'She loves Finn!' 'Oh, fuck me, seriously? Didn't know that!'" He stopped impersonating both of them. "Note the sarcasm on that one. 'Then what's the problem if you know she loves him?!' 'That I love you and it doesn't seem enough for you!'"

For some reason, Kurt Hummel felt a little bit sorry for Sebastian Smythe. Last name needed, it was a very serious, rare and once-in-a-lifetime statement for it to get misunderstood. He went through the same thing. More or less. But it was definitely some kind of bridge between the archenemies. "You can't compete with Rachel Berry," he finally said, full of an unexpected compassion. "But, anyway, why couldn't we know about his back-up Rachel?"

"Because Rachel is everything but a loser. At least in her tiny messed-up head. She cannot lose. We know it," Santana replied.

"And we all agreed to shut our mouths before she came back, lost her mind or fucked things up with Finn," Sebastian added. "So we signed that blood pact willingly."

Kurt leaned in and lowered his voice. "Does the girl know Blaine's gay?"

Sebastian imitated Kurt, mocking his excessive secrecy. "When are you planning to stop holding on to denial?" Both he and Santana laughed. "Yes, Marley knows you and me were with Blaine. And she's okay with it." Sebastian finished the sentence with a frown. "Surprisingly okay. Man, I still don't get used to people reacting as normal people in that school."

"Now when and why couldn't I know?"

"The girl auditioned the same week me and Rachel went back to New York, didn't she?"

"And the second answer?" Kurt inquired.

"We both know you are not over Blaine," Santana answered slowly, tenderly, holding her roommate's stare. "And the last time you found out about the Imp with a girl, you brought back your lardy brother along with the Queen of Hell and made Lima implode. You tend to mess everything up when it comes to that little piece of gel sticking it into holes you cannot provide him with."

Kurt accepted that Santana may have had a point there. "But why the hell did they… blow everything up before after hiding it this long?"

"Because that poor bastard didn't know that the woman of Blaine Anderson's life was the same one she sang with thirty seconds before," Sebastian answered.

"Nor she has the habit of fucking everything up when she already has it all," Kurt finished, looking at the table, absent-minded. He raised his eyes to meet Santana's. "We have to take Rachel out of here."

* * *

"Let us start the first meeting of the sorority of the…"

"We don't have a name," Sugar interrupted Brittany during her initial speech.

The two besties were sitting on Mrs. Pierce's bed with their legs crossed, in front of Rachel, who was on the desk, observing Lord Tubbington from the distance. "Brittany, are you sure you have a license to have this… feline in your house?" Rachel didn't know how to refer to the massive animal that was staring at her while wandering around the top of the chest of drawers.

"It's my cat, Lord Tubbington, don't you remember him? I thought I was the one with memory/head problems in Glee Club."

"Besides my Asperger's," Sugar pointed out.

"Besides Sugar's Asperger's," Brittany corrected herself.

"It's just… it has… he has… grown… to…" Rachel was still trying to get relatively comfortable with the presence of the animal. "Brittany, that is not a cat, it's a jaguar."

"He had a rough year. We've been feeding him with burritos and churros since Santana left, but we didn't get the expected result," Sugar said.

The blonde shrugged. "He looked so cute with the ponytail and the Cheerio outfit though."

Rachel chuckled nervously. "Okay, I don't know what I am doing here, so… I better go." She stood, but the cat, with a surprising agility given his size, got in her way with a meow that was far away from a purr and way closer to the roar of a lion.

"You are here because you had a fight with my best friend's girlfriend, who is your best friend though nobody understands how she can stand you. That's pretty much the main reason why we are giving you a free intervention," Sugar replied, with brutal honesty.

"Rachel, you and I have to do some serious bonding," Brittany said from his bed and turned on a video camera that was already set up on its tripod. She sat back down and turned to look through the lens. "Good evening everybody, here we are, May 6th 2013, with an encore episode of Fondue for Two with one of the main characters of our show as our special guest star." She stood back up, and moved the camera so that it would record Rachel's freaked out face. "Rachel Streisand Berry. Say hi, Rachel."

"It's… it's Rachel Barbra Berry, actually." She blinked a few times, trying to realize what the hell was going on.

"Oh, sorry, I knew it was something like that. Anyhow, Rachel Barbra Berry, our spectators have been wondering how things are going with your former fiancé, Finn Hudson." Sugar took a picture of Finn and placed it between the camera and Rachel, very professional.

"Brittany, what's going on?" Rachel asked, with her eyeballs ready to fall out to the floor if she opened them a little bit wider.

"Fondue for Two, episode 214, the talk show where we've been following the evolution of the main personae of the McKinley Low School. Note needed: the state removed our 'high' since Principal Figgins started renting half of the gym as a stable for his church to storage their sacred cows." Brittany made a pause. "And now, Rachel Barbra Berry, tell us, are the rumors of you coming back to WMLS in order to resume your sexual journey with Blaine Anderson true?"

Sugar illustrated it with a crayon-drawn caricature of Blaine. "Sorry, my printer ran out of ink, but the picture has it all: bowtie, weird eyebrows and the hair is shining because I used actual gel."

"Could this be a little more surreal?" Rachel tried to open the door of the room, but Lord Tubbington charged at it, closing it back. "Brittany, do you mind telling your cat not to hold me hostage?"

The girl picked the camera by the legs of the tripod to focus on her cat, instead of using the mobile structure of the… whatever, it's Brittany, she doesn't know how to use a tripod, and thank God that camera didn't burst into flames. Period.

"Rachel, you owe me at least one interview after putting me aside for the last four years. I know there is a law protecting me from this mistreatment of yours." Brittany made a pause. "And you would never run away from a camera. You love them. It's in your DNA to be the center of attention. And since Sugar's dad produces my show, I have 2000 watchers per night."

"Our ratings are higher that FOX's Thursday nights," the daughter of the producer who operates with totally legal money, nothing related to the mob, added.

The diva agreed and sat back down on the chair. "I am fully aware that you are manipulating me, using my vast yet brilliant ego to make the views of this nonsense shoot up through the roof. For the record," she finally looked into the camera, "Brittany S. Pierce is not playing with me." She was also fully aware of how bad it would be for her reputation that people thought for a second that the blonde played her. "Can you repeat the question, please?"

"I've already forgotten." Then there was an awkward silence. "Oh, yeah, Finn and you."

"We have our love nest in New York, haven't been into a fight for eight straight months. Couldn't be any happier. And. I. Am. Not. Going. To. Cheat. On. Him. With. Blaine." She took the drawing of Blaine and showed it to the camera. "Am I clear? Me and Finn, so in love as we could be. Nothing and no one is going to get between us," she explained very clearly, slowly and adapted for any handicapped mind.

"We'll see that." Sugar fake-coughed.

"Happy?" Rachel asked Brittany.

The blonde turned to Sugar. "Can you take Lord Tubbington to the kitchen and help him with his dinner? But don't let him deep-fry the vegetables. He has to diet for the bikini. Summer is coming," she said that last sentence very Stark-style.

Once the two of them were alone in the room, Brittany turned off the camera and sat on the bed, looking at Rachel with a supportive smile. "Don't be mad at Santana, okay? She's just trying to take care of you."

Rachel appreciated this surprising and more serious attitude. "I'm not mad at her. I know she doesn't want me to… make a wreck out of my relationship with Finn, but… she and Kurt got on my nerves earlier. I know what's good for me and what's not!" She was trying her best not to break into tears. Tears of exhaustion. Tears of a powerless girl.

"And Blaine is good for you, isn't he?"

The diva nodded, with a foolish smile on her face.

"He took care of me after Santana left. Sugar is a good friend but… He gets what it's like to be left behind by the people you love more than anyone."

"Blaine is one of a kind."

They remained silent for a while. Thinking of the little boy. Of their little guardian. The little big man always by their side when they needed him. Finally, Brittany ruined the moment by going through her pile of CDs. "Give me a performance for tonight's Fondue for Two. You'll like it."

Both of them chuckled when the song started playing.

_[Overprotected – Britney Spears]_

_Brittany:  
I need…_

_Rachel:  
…time._

_Brittany:  
Time._

_Rachel:  
Love.  
Joy._

_Brittany:  
Joy._

_Brittany and Rachel:  
I need space._

_Brittany:  
Love._

_Rachel:  
I need… me._

_Brittany:  
Action!_

_Rachel:  
Say hello to the girl that I am.  
You're gonna have to see through my perspective.  
I need to make mistakes just to learn who I am.  
And I don't wanna be so damn protected._

_Brittany:  
There must be another way.  
'Cause I believe in taking chances.  
But who am I to say  
what a girl is to do.  
God, I need some answers._

_Rachel:  
What am I to do with my life?_

_Brittany:  
You will find it out don't worry._

_Rachel:  
How am I supposed to know what's right?_

_Brittany:  
You just got to do it your way._

_Rachel:  
I can't help the way I feel  
but my life has been so overprotected._

_Brittany:  
I tell 'em what I like, what I want, what I don't.  
But every time I do I stand corrected.  
Things that I've been told  
I can't believe what I hear about the world, I realize  
I'm overprotected._

_Rachel:  
There must be another way.  
Cause I believe in taking chances.  
But who am I to say  
what a girl is to do.  
God, I need some answers._

_What am I to do with my life?_

_Brittany:  
You will find it out don't worry.  
Rachel:  
How am I supposed to know what's right?_

_Brittany:_  
_You just got to do it your way._

_Rachel:_  
_I can't help the way I feel (Brittany: Help the way I feel)_  
_but my life has been so overprotected._

_Brittany:  
I need time._

_Rachel:  
Love._

_Brittany:  
I need space._

_Rachel:  
This is it, this is it._

_Brittany and Rachel:  
I don't need nobody telling me just what I wanna.  
What I what what what I'm gonna… (Brittany: I need)_

_Rachel:  
…do about my destiny._

_Brittany:  
I say no, no._

_Brittany and Rachel:  
Nobody's telling me just what I wanna do do.  
I'm so fed up with people telling me to be_

_Rachel:  
someone else but me._

_Brittany:  
Action!_

_Brittany with Rachel harmonizing:  
What am I to do with my life.  
You will find it out don't worry._

_Brittany and Rachel:  
How am I supposed to know what's right?  
You just got to do it your way._

_Brittany with Rachel harmonizing:  
I can't help the way I feel (Rachel: feel)  
But my life has been so overprotected._

_Brittany and Rachel:  
I don't need nobody telling me just what I wanna.  
What I what what what I'm gonna._

_Rachel:  
Do about my destiny._

_Brittany:  
I say no, no._

_Rachel:  
Nobody's telling me just what I wanna._

_Brittany:  
Do, do._

_Rachel:  
I'm so fed up with people telling me to be  
someone else but me._

_What am I to do with my life?_

_Brittany:_  
_You will find it out don't worry._

_Rachel:  
How am I supposed to know what's right?_

_Brittany:_  
_You just got to do it your way._

_Rachel:_  
_Oh, I can't help the way I feel (Brittany: Help the way I feel)_

_Brittany:_  
_but my life has been so_

_Brittany and Rachel:  
overprotected._


	4. The tied and denied feelings

**4. The tied and denied feelings**

The Skype jingle sounded loudly in Rachel Berry's room. She came out of the bathroom in a rush, unwrapped the towel from her hair and, still in her bathrobe, she clicked 'Answer' and her webcam started recording her freshly washed face as Finn Hudson appeared on screen. "Hello, stranger," he greeted with a kind smile.

"Hey." A cute blush rose to her cheeks as her eyes lit up. "Sorry I didn't call you earlier. It's been a crazy day." Comeback, everything that had changed and had been kept away from her knowledge, a master class, Santana's outburst-y entrance, her appearance on Fondue for Two and bullfighting with Lord Tubbington. "Crazy first day back."

"Everything okay with your pupils?"

"They might, and only might stand a chance of getting into NYADA." Rachel made a pause, focusing on not focusing on the Blaine issue. Though, according to her messed up mind, it shouldn't be considered as an issue. Yet. "No! Yet no! Never!" Sweet sweet denial. "And what about you? Hard day at the office?"

Finn Hudson loved his work. As long as the cast allowed it. His days of feeling useless while trying to figure out what to do with his life were so over. Writing a musical, putting his experience at the service of art and getting to boss Jesse St. James around were such wonderful reasons to get out of the bed every day in the most ferocious city he had ever known. "Well… not easy, you cannot rehearse without one of your two main characters, but at least we realized that we needed an understudy in case Santana fled again or she eventually killed Jesse." He chuckled. "By the way, do you know where she is? I checked and she's not in her apartment either."

"Oh, yes, she came running to Lima in case I jumped again into Blaine's arms, though you and I are living our dream because nobody trusts me to control my fee… What?! Feelings? No! I've never said feelings! And why am I excusing myself?!" she thought. "No idea," she answered. "Maybe she needed a day off…"

If there was a person in this world that could see through Rachel Berry's acting, that was Finn Hudson. Well, actually, anyone who wasn't blind and could watch her nose twitch and with moderate deafening that noticed the variation on the tone of her voice would be totally able to tell about her lying like a child in a candy store. "So you doing alright, right?" Finn smiled. "Then talk to you tomorrow, someone's ringing the doorbell and I should answer. Bye, babe. Love ya."

Finn knew Rachel knew nobody was waiting for the boy to open the door. Every single person present knew, even the invisible visitor. "Why did she lie?"

"The question is: why would she lie?" Jesse St. James answered, sitting on the big armchair the couple had in their living room as Finn moved from the desk to lie down on the couch, next to the armchair. "The really important question is: why is she such a terrible liar?"

"I still don't get why I let you in my house." It took a very long time, exactly six and a half months of having to put up with each other at work, but finally Finn Hudson and Jesse St. James learnt to get along. Why? No, again bad questioning: How? Maybe because a friendship could be a dissuasive element to prevent Jesse from hitting on Rachel (at least as aggressively and openly as he used to); maybe because Shelby's powers of persuasion had something to do with sorcery after all the Wicked running through both mother and daughter's veins (Finn's theory); or just because, at the end of the day, a man needs a bro by his side, and Jesse's point of view when it came to Berric dramas was more than useful. Official definition: "kinda bros, but praying every night for Puck to come here."

"Because I'm the only one of your lousy friends who understands the way a star thinks."

"Then why you don't know why she's lying?" Finn raised his eyebrows.

"I do know. Hell I know! But if you give a poor a fish, he'll eat one day; but if you teach him how to fish, he'll die of starvation because this is New York and the only thing you can fish here is herpes in the subway. But that's not my point." He made a pause. "My point is that we all know what she's hiding."

Finn thought for a second. Well, more for a minute. They were three minutes and twenty-eight seconds of reflexive silence while Finn did the math and Jesse opened his eyes widely, amazed by Finn's speed of thinking. "Do you think… she's doing… Santana?" Finn asked with a frown.

"Mother of God." Jesse held his head in his hands as he rolled his eyes. "Interesting plot twist, but no." He sighed.

Finn looked at Jesse, both of them sighing at the same time. "The other reason is…"

"My little clone."

Finn chuckled. "Blaine's now your clone?"

"Charismatic hair, epic voice, drives Rachel crazy and best leader his choir has had. Give him a slightly more decent sense of style and dazzling career on Broadway, and you have me."

"Dude, him and Rach are just friends. Strictly friends."

"Then why would Santana have left a note on her door saying 'Off to save the world, xoxo, Auntie Tana'?" Quickest and easiest absence warning ever, given the fact that Rachel and Finn lived in the apartment next to Kurt and Santana's. Next-door neighbors. To the regret of some of them, though most of the time everything was laughs and playful (or hurtful, depending on the day) puns.

"Not conclusive evident."

"Conclusive evidence," Jesse corrected. "But if you want to keep denying the fact that we've spent the last months hearing the same story about the Herculean effort she went through when she…

"…restored the natural order of cosmos," Finn joined Jesse quoting Santana.

The evil historical Vocal Adrenaline leader stopped before counting the number of times Mrs. Lopez had explained her randomly successful plan and her project for the elaboration of a self-guidance book called 'I am the support of this world, and if it wasn't for me we would be all rotting in hell by now. Not official title, pending on revision.' Statement finished with a finger snap. "Then, if you know, why do you keep wasting my time with stupid excuses for her?"

"I trust her." Finn made a reflexive pause. "Dude, I had him sleeping on this same couch dozens of times since we moved here." He took a firm grip on the cushions.

Jesse threw his head back. "Looks like Santana does not."

"But I am the one who sleeps with Rachel every night, am I wrong?"

"You love rubbing it in my face," Jesse replied, faking despair.

"Just because I am not the best leader of the choirs I've been in." There were a few seconds of silence before Finn turned the conversation back on topic. "She would never cheat on me." He shook his head, trusting on the love of his life one hundred percent.

Jesse's face turned into a mischievous grin. "When there was a fire… there's smoke."

"I love her."

"Why are you saying this to me?! I don't care!

* * *

"I think… I owe you an apology."

Those were Blaine Anderson's first words when Rachel Berry opened her front door. She invited him in, and took him to her old bedroom, after the usual how-are-you-doing-young-gentleman's with Mr. and Mr. Berry.

The room wasn't excessively changed since Rachel left. The only difference was less clothes in the closets and framed pictures of all the photos she sent her dads every time she ran into a celebrity in the city. It was like homage to their daughter. Homage with the same bed where Blaine and Rachel confessed, laughed and cried lots of things out last fall. So they sat down.

"Owe me an apology for what?"

Blaine smiled, glad to be in that place with his best friend. "I thought you would be mad."

"Why?!" Rachel chuckled. She took the high road, though both of them knew perfectly that Marley was the one and only possible subject of conversation.

"I should have told you about me and Marley."

"It's… it's your life, Blaine. You don't have to tell me every single detail if you don't feel like it." Rachel kept smiling, trying her best not to release her controller self. 'Controlist' in Finnish.

Blaine shrugged. "So… tell me, what do you think of her?"

"She looks… fine." She hadn't improved her interpretative skills in thirty minutes after speaking with her boyfriend. In fact, she looked even less credible.

The boy looked right into Rachel's eyes and laughed. "Please, burst out. Don't extend this thing any longer."

Rachel stood up from the bed, throwing her arms in the air, getting in a serious flap. "I can't believe you kept that from me! I am your best friend! I tell you every single little miny tiny detail of my life, and you hide a girl?! A girl?!"

"Rachel, it's not that…" He replied, still not taking it at gravely as his friend.

"Yes, Blaine, it is that… whatever. But it is a lot. A big huge ginormous… girl." She stopped for a quick self-correction, "in a figurative sense, because she's surprisingly thin and pretty and blue-eyed and talen… But that's not what I'm talking about! Blaine! A girl! It's not that you've had a relapse into meth or bowties! You can't hide a girl from me."

"Why can't I? You just told me it's my lif…"

"Oh, please, you know I didn't mean that!" she interrupted him again. "You know how it makes me feel? Stupid, Blaine. Stupid. What were you thinking? That you could hide her forever or that I wouldn't get why you weren't going to tell me?"

"I didn't want…"

"Hurt your feelings?!"

Blaine stood up as well, finally on his nerves. "No! And if you stopped interrupting me, I'd explain it to you, because it's not that easy!"

"Oh, yes, it's easy. Hey, Rachel, NYADA auditions are next Saturday, mind giving me a hand? But don't come until Glee is over because you might run into the girl I'm dating, who may seem the perfect stuntwoman for your first musicaction movie."

"I can't believe you're saying that." Blaine's anger vanished as disappointment rose in his eyes.

"Okay, do explain me why you are the one with the hurt feelings," Rachel said ironically, chilling down a little.

"I didn't want you to think that I'm dating Marley because of her… resemb…"

"Overwhelming and eerie resemblance."

"Fuck, Rachel, just shut up for a second!" For the first time in like… ever there was a cold, painful silence between them. "I… I'm sorry."

Rachel sat back down on her bed and took a deep breath with a sad and afflicted face. "Sorry, go on."

"With Marley's… similarities to you, everybody kind of… mocked at me about…" And sadness stroke Blaine Anderson back. "Please, interrupt me." He let himself fall on the bed, burying his face in the pink bedspread.

"And you didn't want me to think that you weren't over me," Rachel started stroking Blaine's woolen-vested back. "So it didn't interfere with my relationship with Finn and there was no second-guessing." She lay on her back, holding Blaine's hand. "I can't be mad at you, and you know it."

Blaine turned his head to look at Rachel. "I don't want to mess things up."

"You won't. We won't," she rectified. "Because this is not your fault. And neither is mine, but… this was something we both knew when we decided not to cut strings and still be friends after… all the… all that… This could be a great moment for you to interrupt me." Rachel chuckled.

"We promised each other that we would never break up, remember?" He smiled back.

"True."

After a couple minutes just lying there, in silence, looking into each other's eyes and seeing the world in them, Blaine got a text. He pulled his phone out of his right tight red jeans pocket and read it out loud, "Frodo, you've been spotted going to Rachel's. I swear to your Eurasian god that if you don't get out with your hands in the air right know I'll SWAT the shit out of you." Both friends laughed, before a second text made Blaine's phone buzz and turn their faces into a severe rictus. "PS, Brittany lent me her tranquilizer gun and I'm putting my sexy police boots on. Two minutes before I take Mister Berries' door down. I've said."

"We won't definitely mess anything up," Rachel chuckled before sitting up. "You should get going before Lieutenant Lopez tranqs my father's china."

Blaine stood up with a grin on his face, fixing his wrinkled clothes in front of the mirror. "See you tomorrow in Glee, right?"

"See me tomorrow in Glee."

* * *

"Sam, can I talk to you for a minute?" Marley held the blond's arm as they walked to the choir room. There was no secret. Marley Rose found a very good friend in Sam Evans. The socioeconomic status is a really good thing to bond upon.

Trouty Mouth nodded as he replied, "tell me, grasshopper."

"What happened between Blaine and Rachel?" Right to the point.

They were the first ones to arrive at class. They sat on the far left corner and Sam started fully disclosing every chapter of last fall's saddest love story, besides Quinn's wedding, but some people don't even classify it under the tag 'love'. "How much do you already know?"

"It's just a hunch, but you just… You just said enough." She stood and tried to storm out, but Sam stopped her by grabbing her arm, so she turned around and tried to get out of Sam's grip. "Please, let me… Let me go." Suddenly, she felt powerless and sad.

"I fell for a girl a long time ago. And I had to compete not only with her present, but with her past. And that past… was too big, and too good of a person and… He was a bro of mine."

Marley stopped putting up resistance and sat back down, empathizing with her friend's nostalgia. "Not following, but go on," she replied with a weak smile.

"She was the most beautiful girl I've ever seen. Nice, sweet, and troubled as hell." He chuckled, recalling every single moment of those golden days of his sophomore year. "But she never made it to forget the boy before me."

"And how did you know she didn't love you?"

"She cheated on me, I cheated on her. And… she came back with the other boy."

"And you?"

Sam sighed. "I lost. Because you can't compete with the past. It's like stabbing water. But don't stab Rachel, that'd be homicide, and it's something we have reserved for Tina. Like a courtesy." He laughed, trying to disguise his heartache. "But just because I lost her, it doesn't mean that Blaine's not over Rachel. Besides, she has her boyfriend now. Blaine can't compete with Rachel's past either. So… you're kind of tied."

"He went to her place last night." And it tore Marley apart.

"Blaine's not a cheater. He can be a lot of things, but that is not one of them." Sam put his hand on Marley's shoulder and gave her a reassuring squeeze.

The girl took a deep breath as she saw her boyfriend and his… his past walking into the room. They were smiling, talking, laughing… together. They sat on the front row, and Marley's eyes filled with tears when there was no hello kiss for her.

One by one, the choir room got filled. Even crowded. Tina pushing Artie's wheelchair and even granting Rachel a relatively thankful smile for her master class, Sugar and Joe holding hands (origins of the relationship to be determined), Sebastian hatred-looking at every one of the presents, Jacob eye-doing them all instead, Will going through his music sheets and vest catalogues, Rory remaining silent as medically prescribed to heal his tongue, and Brittany and Santana with their arms wrapped around each other's waists.

"Guess who's back?!"

Those who hadn't seen her yet cheered the return of the queen of bitches. "But just for the week, I'm on duty, not for pleasure," Santana said, smiling and trying to get out of the hugs.

"Not for pleasure? Didn't you like it last night?" Brittany asked with puppy eyes.

"Oh, honey." Santana chuckled as she kissed her girlfriend.

"Look who I found last night on my doorstep," Kurt said as he walked into the choir room next to his brother.

"Has Finn Hudson just outentranced me?" Santana asked, with her eyes about to fall to the ground.


	5. Always a good moment to honor your name

**5. It is always a good moment to honor your name**

Rachel was the last one of the round of hellos and how-are-you-doings. She held her man's hands, got on her tiptoes and kissed him, smiling into that sweet kiss. "What are you doing here?"

Finn looked at Santana across the room. The same Santana his girlfriend didn't know a thing about the night before when they skyped. The same Santana Rachel lied about. "Just… a little homesick without you home." He returned the smile, disguising his feelings of betrayal way better than the girl in the horse sweater. "Didn't know we had an alumni assembly going on today. When did you get here, Santana?"

"Yesterday, Chubbers, didn't you get my note?" the muse of Lima Heights replied in her usual mocking tone.

Finn raised an eyebrow and nodded slowly, reassuring himself in his head as Will welcomed them all to sit down and enjoy the class, sparking off a very awkward moment. "Oh, new girl?" The tall boy frowned as he held a hand out for Marley, who shook it nicely after introducing herself. "Nice to meet you, Marley Rose. Good catch, man." Finn patted Sam's shoulders and chuckled, thinking they were together, given that they were sitting very close and… How to put it? Finn's talents are a little bit limited, and judging relationships is not one of them.

Marley chucked and blushed as Sam scooted his chair to the left, letting more air between himself and his friend. "Oh, no, I'm with Blaine," she answered with her usual nicest voice.

"Then why are you sitting with my girl, Blaine?" There are knives way less sharp than that one Finn threw at the little Warbler. And then his smile didn't cheat anyone.

Blaine stood up decently and without exchanging any other word; he moved to a chair on the left so Finn could sit next to Rachel.

Every single time he went to visit Rachel in New York, Finn had to put up with his presence in his house. After all the fights they had had in the past, they had learnt how to respect each other and team up when needed, but Finn started running out of patience during the sixth weekend he had to run into Blaine in his own bathroom. He was used to taking deep breaths. Way more used than he wished he had to be.

"Did you tell him you came here because you were afraid that me and Rac…?" Blaine asked Santana, now that they were sitting together.

"A) I am not afraid of anything you can do because I am a samurai on your attempts of ruining all our lives and B) I am a samurai on your attempts of ruining all of our lives and I know what, how, when and why to do everything I do, and bringing Greasinn Hudson here to have a cockfight is not one of them. So please, stop insulting me and let me hold my woman's hands in peace."

Will interrupted all the chattering and whispering of his class. "Well, I was about to call you guys to come back today for a little surprise I want to set up…"

"Surprise wedding with Mrs. Pillsbury!" Sugar shouted.

"Surprise tribute for me!" Tina added.

"Surprise Hunger Games is what we all need here," Sebastian said as he rolled his eyes, throwing himself against the back of the chair, unexpectedly filling the place of Puckerman as the couldn't-care-less student.

"No. Tomorrow is the anniversary of someone very special to us at this school, and I'd like to reunite the New Directions and grant him… yes, a tribute."

Tina stood up and looked for something to toss against the wall, but everyone was expecting the move and didn't let anything within her reach. "I can hardly wait to get out of here and find the recognition I deserve!" she yelled before spitting on the floor and sitting back down.

"Wouldn't it be a nice moment for me to show you all my birthday present?" Rachel walked to the middle of the classroom after turning the lights off and played a video on her big-screen phone.

"Sweet mother of Christ, you've sent it thirty-two times. My Gmail classifies you as spam," Artie said before a long sigh full of exhaustion.

Rachel raised a finger and waved it in the air. "But this time you get to see it with live commentary by Rachel Berry herself. So, please, somebody record me while I speak." She turned to the teacher with a wide grin. "Sit down, Mr. Shue, you have the right to enjoy the Berribute too."

"Yahoo protects us too," he mumbled on his way to Rachel's seat.

_[Don't rain on my parade – Lea Michele]_

"So, this is a travelling shot through my apartment. Now our room. Spoiler alert: the shape under the sheets is not me."

"Oh, who could have ever told?! I guess that pair of gigantic feet hanging off the bed wasn't clarifying enough," Tina said ironically.

"Shut it, Chang, you don't have a man who tributes you. And here it goes. Surprise! Finny gets out of the sheets."

_Finn:  
Don't tell me not to live just sit and putter.  
Life's candy and the sun's a ball of butter.  
Don't bring around a cloud to rain on my parade._

"Blainey rolls out from under the bed."

_Blaine:  
Don't tell me not to fly I've simply got to.  
If someone takes a spill it's me and not you.  
Who told you you're allowed to rain on my parade?_

"You are a dishonor to this room and to the media world itself," Artie spitted, wide-eyed.

"Santana comes out of the closet," Rachel went on. "No pun intended."

_Santana:  
I'll march my band out.  
I'll beat my drum.  
And if I'm fanned out._

"We fade to black and move to my Lima room, as you can see from the MVP of Regionals 2011, which you won thanks to me."

_Hiram:  
Your turn at bat, sir._

_Leroy:  
At least I didn't fake it._

_Hiram and Leroy:  
Hat, sir, I guess I didn't make it._

"They are the best, aren't they? My number one fans. So sorry for all of you. I know you try hard though." She kept smiling, not even noticing the faces of hate most of her audience was making. "And here we go, lip dub down Broadway."

_Jesse:  
But whether I'm the rose of sheer perfection.  
A freckle on the nose of life's complexion.  
The cinder or the shiny apple of its eye._

"Live voices, nothing recorded, Autotune free."

_Kurt:  
_I_ gotta fly once.  
I gotta try once.  
Only can die once, right, sir?_

"Porcelain blowing notes that we could have fixed if we used a studio, but…" Santana shrugged.

_Kurt and Santana:  
Ooh, life is juicy, juicy, and you see,_

_Santana:  
I gotta have my bite, sir._

_Shelby:  
Get ready for me, love, 'cause I'm a comer.  
I simply gotta march, my heart's a drummer.  
Don't bring around a cloud to rain on my parade._

"Best late mom a girl can ever get."

_Blaine:  
I'm gonna live and live now._

_Finn:  
Get what I want I know how._

_Jesse:  
One roll for the whole shebang._

_Santana:  
One throw, that bell will go clang._

_Shelby:  
Eye on the target and wham._

_Kurt:  
One shot, one gun shot, and bam!_

"I was the one who recorded this part. They came home with a bouquet and told me to hold the camera. So cute."

_Blaine, Finn, Kurt and Santana:  
Hey, Mrs. Berry  
here we are!_

_Rachel:  
I'll march my band out.  
I'll beat my drum.  
And if I'm fanned out._

On display, Rachel holding the camera with her arms out, filming herself. Herself singing. During her own tribute/present. While her friends tried to shut her and finish the not-enough studied performance.

_Blaine:  
Your turn at bat, sir._

"Yes, I did bite his hand."

_Blaine and Rachel:  
At least I didn't fake it._

_Rachel and Santana:  
Hat, sir, I guess I didn't make it._

_Rachel:  
Get ready for me, love, 'cause I'm a comer.  
I simply gotta march, my heart's a drummer.  
Nobody, no, nobody is gonna rain on my parade!_

Rachel put her phone back into the pocket of her skirt (yes, a skirt with pockets) and started applauding. "And before you call me ugly things, I have to say in my defense that I have a moral duty to Barbs and I cannot let anyone try to finish that song. I have to protect her honor. Well, and mine, because that song is already the anthem of my life."

"Isn't it ironic? Your life is represented by a song you…"

But the diva interrupted Tina before she even finished, "say something about my NYADA audition and I swear to God, Barbra and me myself that you won't make it to yours." After the threat, Rachel moved back to her seat and Will returned to his place in the middle of the choir room.

"As I was saying after this surprisingly long interruption, I'd like you all to come tomorrow at five for the event I'm talking about. All the staff is invited, and I want the whole New Directions to perf…"

"Oh my God…" Finn and Rachel said in unison as they held hands.

Will looked at them with kind of an accusatory look. "And I'd like you to behave and not to end up… like the last time you all got together."

"I still have my banner of We Love Drunken Berry," Sugar said.

"Let's remember moments of the wedding! We can start off with when I confessed that I was cheating on Mike with Artie." Tina's excitement was... disturbing at the very least.

"Nobody noticed that, we were too busy watching Finn go all Julia Roberts on Quinn," Blaine replied, trying to hit the tall boy back after the get-away-from-my-girl moment earlier.

"Right after she smacked the hell out of Santana," Artie added.

"That happened before or after Berry's speech'n'fall?" Santana tried to change the subject and protect her hurt pride.

"Best toast ever given." Rachel kissed Finn softly on his lips. "Where would we be if I hadn't said those words?" she asked with the foolish smile of a girl in love on her face.

"Watching you rape Blainey in this same room," Sebastian said with an eyeroll.

Finn turned to the former leader of the Warblers, the one with the decent height. "Dude, why don't you fuck off for a while?"

"Because you've come to my place and this is why you're subject to get a finger stuck into an open wound, as I see." Sebastian chuckled.

All of a sudden, as Will tried to cool the things off between his students, Marley stormed out of the classroom. Her boyfriend called her name and tried to stop her, but she mumbled something like 'leave me alone' while trying to hold the tears inside until she got to the bathroom.

"Let me," Rachel squeezed Blaine's hand before following the girl into the ladies' room. So many memories. So many things happened there. If only the toilets could talk for a minute instead of keep draining the excrements of the McKinley High School girls'… man, all the shit they could say. Pun intended.

Rachel knocked on the door of the stall where the whining came from. "Carly, it's me, Rachel Berry." It's always a good moment to say your name. The world can't forget it. Ever. "Why don't you open the door so we can talk?" She frowned at herself for a second. "God, that sounded so awful," she said to herself.

"Go away, please."

The diva got into the adjoining stall, but she turned around quickly when she saw what lay inside the toilet bowl. "Oh my God, what are you now, animals? We are ladies, for Christ's sake!"

"There's no water today. Figgins turns it off and calls it Drought Wednesdays." Finally Marley unlocked the door and let it open slowly as she tried to dry the tears off her face.

Rachel stared at those red eyes as she leaned against the sink. "I know what you're thinking. And I used to feel this exact way a while ago." She smiled, trying to comfort the girl. "It's a recurrent gag. Me and Blaine or Santana calling Blaine 'Frodo' or messing with his height or with his amount of solos… Girl, he's a goldmine."

Both of them chuckled as Marley stood and walked out of the stall. "I… I think I…"

"Blaine's a very easily-loved boy. But…"

"Okay, I appreciate that your doing this, but we just met and I don't feel comfortable talking with you about him," Marley interrupted her, as politely as she could.

"He didn't tell you about me either, right?"

Marley sighed and started wandering up and down the bathroom. "He was just going to see his friends in NY." One more tear ran down her face. "I never thought you… that one of his friends was…"

"Nothing happened between us. I mean, it happened, but a long time ago. He didn't cheat on you, if that's what concerns you. And don't believe what Sebastian and Tina and the rest of the world say, because the whole world talked about it; we just kissed. A couple times. Never gone further." Was there a pinch of regret in Rachel Berry's voice? Maybe. Maybe it wasn't a 'maybe', but a 'definitely', or maybe she just swallowed down a lump she had in her throat, who knows?

* * *

"It's not going to get pretty tomorrow, you know?" Artie said as he rolled down the hallway next to Finn once the class finished. If there was something the handicapped boy had missed during the past months, it was having his old gang with him. Yes, he still had Brittany and Tina, and they helped each other, but being next to his real captain felt so good.

"I know, man, I know… But now it's different. Everything is in its right place." Finn's words didn't sound very reliable. Yes, he was an honest man. Never lie. Never cheat. Never do anything wrong, at least not on purpose. But who said anything about denial?

"You sure? Things with Blainey Boy looked a little bit… rough."

Finn squeezed Artie's shoulder as they left the building. "He's not the one I care about." And he smiled, knowing that that was the only thing we was one hundred percent sure of. "Last time I talked with Sam he told me you and Tina are doing alright… right?"

"Yeah, man, she's…"

"Hard to handle? Preaching to the choir." Finn chuckled.

"I can't believe I'm dating the girl of the quarterback." Artie burst into laughter. The inner resemblance (brazen and suable copy, as Rachel would say) between their girlfriends was more than excessive. "But, what am I going to say to you? She might be difficult sometimes, but I love her."

Finn smiled foolishly. Teen love… so many memories for him. "You love her?"

"She gave me more that you could imagine." Artie's eyes showed glances of happiness, pride, illusion and faith. All by thinking of a girl whose mental stability was fragile tending to explosive. "She gave me a dream."

"Are you auditioning for NYADA too?"

Artie shook his head with a wide smile. "No, I'm going to walk."

* * *

**This chapter is one of my personal favs. So fun to write and to design my own personal Berribute. I really hope you've enjoyed it.**


	6. Breakdown

**6. Breakdown**

It was one PM when Mercedes Jones walked through the doors of the McKinley High School in a tight pink beaded night dress, high white heels and an obscenely wide black Pamela hat matching her equally obscenely big round sunglasses to protect her eyes from the imaginary flashes of the pictures nobody was taking of her, except for the one that Becky Jackson uploaded to Instagram titled "Glee goes Gaga and out of ideas, one more time."

She walked with confidence to the choir room, where Mike and Santana were already catching up. "I'm back!" She threw her arms into the air, trying to make a spectacular pose as she took her shades off.

"And you haven't shaved your armpits." Santana chuckled as she hugged her former co-captain of the Troubletones. "You look ridiculous, you know it?"

Mercedes took her hat off and let her hair fall down her back before throwing it to, as she would say, "her audience," which was the empty chairs of the choir room in this case. "You'll get me when you premiere your show," she replied happily before 'kissing' Mike hello. But a kiss allegedly-jet-set style, because they didn't touch their cheeks. So, correction: she replied happily before almost giving a normal greeting to a friend. "How are you guys doing anyway?"

"Oh. My. God. You. Look. Fabulous!" Kurt yelled as he arrived and gave his friend a bear hug.

Santana sat next to Mike and rolled her eyes. "Don't worry, you can come to our place whenever you want, I don't let him choose any decorations. Anyway, how are you doing, Mr. Chang?"

"Life's treating me as fine as possible. Can't complain." That day everything was smiles and cheer. What was going on? "You?"

"Wasting my time. Why does Mr. Shue want us to start rehearsing now if everyone else is in class?" Santana rolled her eyes and sighed.

Kurt pointed at the circle of nine chairs formed in the middle of the room. "I think he wants us to rip one another's eyes out before this evening." He moved to sit on one of them.

Mercedes chuckled and sat next to him, trailing the tail of her dress along the floor. "Couldn't believe it when Mr. Shue called me. I mean… who on Earth wants to have us all together under the same roof? And how on Earth does he plan to do it without a riot or any of us going up to see the Lord?"

"Yesterday I gpt my will made, so I'm ready for every dramatic turn of events," Rachel stated as she walked into the classroom by her man's arm.

"I testify," Finn added.

"Hello, Mike, you look as handsome as ever, getting rid of Tina has done you good. Hello, Mercedes, I hope you're doing okay pretending you're something in this life. I would tell you about my life and say hello in a more appropriate way, but I'm kind of nervous. Can't get distracted, anything could happen any moment." Yes, Rachel Berry was freaking out, maybe overreacting, but when you are expecting your nemesis after taking your man back from her, though he's actually yours, but she saw him first… Anyway, the girl in the high socks was about to wear a diaper because the last words she exchanged with her mother's child's mother was something like, 'If I don't punch you right know, it's because we are in a hospital and you wouldn't choke with your own blood.' So, yes, Rachel Berry was not the living proof of calmness and self-control.

"Brittany's tranq gun is inside the piano. Don't worry. And I have a bottle of holy water in the bag in case needed," Santana said as she sat next to her bestie.

"We don't know if she's even coming," Finn, who was still standing greeting his bro Mike, tried to cool his girl down. "Do you really think she'd like to see me? Or you?" He chuckled, even though he was even more terrified. The wrath of Fabray knew no limits.

"I'd pay to see your faces if she appears. Defs," Mercedes replied as she fixed her make-up with a little mirror she took out of her cleavage.

* * *

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" Marley Rose's was broken. One whole evening with its entire night waiting for a call. For a text. For a '"hey, it's me, we're fine." Too much waiting for a girl's voice not to be broken.

Blaine closed his locker and looked into her eyes, trying his best not to say something that he'd regret later. "I'm sorry," he answered as he shook his head. But it was not an 'I'm sorry because I've messed everything up', no, it was an 'I'm sorry, but I can't go any further.'

"That's all you've gotta say?" Words didn't come easily. They hurt her while crawling their way out of her throat, dragging her heart up along with the tears. "Just sorry?"

Fight or flight, they say. Blaine Anderson looked at his… what was she at that moment anyway? He could only see a familiar face with red eyes, sorrow and a halo of blame trying to rip out his soul. Blaine clenched his fists inside the pockets of his tight slacks and turned around, hurrying into the men's room without a word.

When the door closed after him, he slid down the wall, slowly, letting the weight of his guilt push him to the floor. His eyes wide shut, his head between his hands and a tear fighting against gravity not to fall down.

It was the sound of a fly what made Blaine raise his head and look up. Not a fly fly, fly the fly that makes 'zzzzz' and sits on shit and stuff like that, no, a fly of a trouser being done after pissing. "I have the intention of getting out of this bathroom, if you're okay with it," Noah Puckerman said as he waited for his little former colleague to stand up. But seeing that the only thing that moved was Blaine's mouth emitting a weak chuckle, the Puckermaster sat down next to him. "No, you're not okay, am I wrong?"

"Nope, not wrong at all." Blaine held his hand out for his bro, but he answered with a hug instead. "And you?" he asked back as he melted into the friendly gesture. Hell, he needed that so badly. "You don't call, don't visit us, not even a damn letter." Blaine tried his best to chin up and hide that Molotov cocktail he had as a heart.

"Been busy building an empire out of nothing, man." Puck chuckled as he handed the short boy a business card.

Blaine read it out loud, trying not to misspell it or burst into laughter. "Pool-ckerman? Seriously?"

"Man, LA is a jungle. You have Berry mind-washing you into how hard it is to make it in NY. Cali is the real deal, dude. You gotta aim high."

"I see… Pool-ckerman." He finally laughed, more loudly than he would have liked.

But Puck didn't bother. In fact, that was his purpose. To see his bro smile. "You gonna tell me what's going on? Is it Kurt?" he asked after a brief pause.

Blaine shook his head. No, it wasn't Kurt. At least, thank God, he made it to get over Kurt. And he didn't even want to know how it would be like if he had one more person stuck into his head/heart/guts.

"That dude that left you blind?"

"No, it's not about him either." He sighed.

Puck fixed his eyes on Blaine's face. "If you tell me that you're still going on with the Rachel thing, dude, I'm going to kick the shit out of you because it's not normal, right, moral or whatever. But no, man, no."

Blaine stood up and went to look into a mirror, fixing his gelled hair and drying that pair of tears that didn't make their way to the tiles of the floor.

"You gotta be kidding me." Puck rolled his eyes like they weren't connected to anything in his brain as he followed the boy. "Man, what the fuck is wrong with you? You can't mess up with that stuff! It's Finn and Rachel!"

"You think I don't know that?" Blaine asked slowly, calmly at first sight, but raging on the insides as his hands were trying to break off the stone of the sink denoted. His arms started shaking because of the strength he was applying to the cold counter. "You really think I fucking don't know that?!" And the always polite, always nice, always perfect Blaine Anderson burst, along with the mirror after he punched it. "Yes! Fuck, I know it!"

"Man! Rel…" Puck couldn't complete the sentence. Blaine pushed him into one of the stalls and stormed out, with his hand dripping blood over his steps. Where could he run to? The choir room would be infested with alumni, the auditorium was a cliché and the cafeteria was crowded for sure. But he ran, ran as fast as he could as the right sleeve of his white shirt got tinged with dark red.

He didn't feel pain. Not at all. At one point he wondered to himself if he had stopped feeling somehow. A switch that got turned off for his own sake. For his own sanity and for the sanity of everybody else around him.

"What's going on?" Sebastian asked when they collided. He noticed the blood. And his face. And his dead-alike eyes. "Blaine, what the hell is going on?" And for the first time in a long time, the boy that didn't give a crap got concerned.

"Leave me alone!" Blaine went on with his literal track of yelling and pushing people away. But the fact that he kept outbursting ten feet away from the open door of the choir room wasn't the very best decision not to draw any attention.

The six heads in the classroom turned to the entrance and watched the raging boy passing by. There were frowns, faces turning white, and worrying. Lots of worrying.

Rachel was the only one who stood up and tried to head out after they all interrupted their surprisingly cheerful conversation. But something was stopping her. It was Finn's hand, grabbing her arm and holding her back down. She turned to look at her man, trying to tell him that her friend needed her. But for the first time, her eyes weren't enough somehow. "Finn, please."

When her forearm tightened in his hand and her eyes started tearing up, Finn felt as if he was standing outside his body, looking down to a version of him that he didn't recognize. So he let go. Not without hating himself.

"You shouldn't have done that," Kurt said to his brother as Rachel hurried out of the choir room. "Now she knows you don't trust her."

* * *

It took sixteen times of shouting his name for Rachel Berry to make Blaine Anderson stop his runaway. Four long minutes of running behind him that finally finished when he hid under the stands of the football field. Lucky them, the 25% of the Skanks graduated, a 50% is in a safer place (for the student body, obviously) and the other 25% dyed their hair back to blond and wasn't there, but expected to be near. Or not. Who knows? But that's not the subject now.

Back to Blaine's outbreak: he didn't actually stop running away from Rachel/the world/himself; he turned around, yelled at Rachel. But when he tried to resume his march, he finally saw the blood on his hand and got dizzy. Perks of being a lightweight.

Rachel ran even faster and helped him not to fall to the ground. She fanned him with her hand and took him to the couch (yes, last year's Quinn's demands to Sue did some good), aiding her friend to sit down slowly. "If I say your name one more time, I know I'm going to run out of voice, and that's something the world cannot afford currently. So tell me what's going on," she commanded calmly, acknowledging that the boy wasn't at his best and it wasn't the best moment for her to go all Berry on him. Pushy, controller, demanding, needy and vocally astonishing.

Blaine was focused on a point on the floor, trying not to pass out and look ridiculously weak. "Rachel, please… just leave me alone." His voice reached a higher pitch, breaking into a mess of tears, squirms and shame.

The girl didn't reply. She just started examining the wound carefully. "It might be a deep cut, Blaine. We have to go to the nursery." She wrapped her arms around her broken friend and pulled him closer. "Way deeper than we think." They both knew she wasn't referring to the cut then.

"It looks like it has stopped bleeding," Blaine said when Rachel stood up. "Give me a couple minutes, okay?"

She took a deep breath and looked down at him. "I need to know what's going on with you. Blaine, I need you to talk to me." Rachel had no other option but keep pushing. Metaphorically speaking, of course, Blaine couldn't even stand a gust of wind. "I can't do anything if you don't say it out loud." And then she felt so powerless, so weak against her need to help her best friend.

Blaine rested his head on his good hand, leaving the other hanging off his knee as the blood dried far away from the tears that kept falling to the ground. "I can't go any further, Rachel. I just can't cope with everything." He looked up at the anxious girl. "I just… can't." Rumor has it that he got printed a t-shirt saying 'I can't go any further' that exact afternoon. That was his Born This Way shirt.

"You can't what, Blaine? What?! Say it," she begged.

"I can't be friends with you anymore." It was a shot right through her heart. And through his too. Blaine knew that it wasn't the blood loss talking, no. It was himself, fully conscious of what he was doing. "I… Rachel, I need to get over you." His physical weakness might have influenced that confession, but it was a burden he needed to get off his chest. "And… And if we keep doing this, if we put each other above our… above the people we are supposed to love, we will never get it over with." He kept crying calmly, letting the tears run down his tired face.

Rachel started tearing up. "Are you… breaking up with me?"

"We knew this was bound to happen."

"No, we didn't! Blaine, don't! Don't say that you can't go any further when we are not going anywhere. This is us, you and me; you are my friend, nothing else. We are here. We are living in the state of friendship, not moving towards anything else. So, no, you're not going any further because nobody is going to!"

"It's so easy for you to say it."

"Why is it easy for me and not for you?!"

"Because you don't love me the way I love you!" Blaine jumped off the couch. "And I'm sick and tired of living in denial when every single person knows that I never moved on. And you are not an exception."

They stood there, in silence, looking into each other's eyes, knowing that they had reached the point of no return and all the cards were on the table. Except one. Rachel's one. "Don't do this. Don't make me do this." She joined the crying party.

"You know we have to." Blaine's voice kept breaking with every word he said.

Rachel shook her head. "I know that I don't want to, and I know that we promised that we would never break up. And you have to keep your word."

"I'm sorry…" he said as he stepped back from his friend. "But… I can't go on with this."

"Be a man and don't run away, Blaine Anderson!"

But he ran anyway, leaving Rachel there, standing all by herself.

_[Crying – Roy Orbison & k. ]_

_Blaine:  
I was all right for a while.  
I could smile for a while. _

_Rachel:  
Then I saw you last night,  
you held my hand so tight  
when you stopped to say hello._

_Blaine:  
You wished me well.  
You couldn't tell  
that I'd been…_

_Blaine and Rachel:  
crying…_

_Blaine:  
over you._

_Blaine and Rachel:  
Crying... _

_Blaine:  
over you.  
Then you said 'so long.' _

_Rachel:  
Left me standing all alone._

_Blaine and Rachel:  
Alone and crying, crying, crying, crying._

_Blaine:  
It's hard to understand…_

_Rachel:  
but the touch of your hand  
can start me crying._

Blaine saw himself in the auditorium, rehearsing for an audition that finally was the only thing in his head.

_Blaine:  
I thought that I was over you;  
but it's true, so true,  
I love you even more  
than I did before.  
But darling what can I do?  
For you don't love me…_

And there she was, standing right beside him, as she had always been.

_Rachel:  
and I'll always be  
crying over you._

_Crying over you._

_Blaine:  
Yes, now you're gone and…_

_Blaine and Rachel:  
from this moment on  
I'll be crying, crying, crying, crying.  
Yeah crying, crying…_

_Blaine:  
over you._

But the only one really upon that stage was Blaine Anderson, crying.


	7. Reunion

**7. Reunion**

Rachel Barbra Berry walked back to the choir room at a slow and calmed pace. She dried the tears off her face as she crossed the football field. She watched the jocks throwing the ball to each other. She saw them bonding together. Friends. Friends having fun. Friends being friends. She shed one more tear.

She went to the ladies' room to freshen up before getting back to the reunion of the old New Directioners. She fixed her make-up and cleaned the smudged mascara under her eyes. What a day she had chosen to go a little bit prettier. She took a deep breath in front of the mirror and sighed, before reassuring herself, "head high, nothing's wrong, everything's okay and you'll get through it all." She finished her statement with a weak yet believable smile on her face. And then the door of the stall right behind Rachel opened, making her freeze when she saw who got out of it in the mirror.

"So say we all," the blonde queen of hell said as she touched up her light red lipstick. "How are you doing, Rachel?" Quinn asked, without even looking at her nemesis. She finally turned to Rachel when the diva didn't answer her polite question. "Oh, come on, what's wrong? Are you still afraid of me?" She chuckled.

Rachel's eyes were wide open, still fixed on her own reflection. "Quinn, I know I hurt you, but let's keep it civilized, okay?" She fixed her hair over and over again, trying to 'keep herself busy' while talking to the one who tried to steal her Finny.

Quinn laughed. "Girl, it's been almost a year. Do you think I came here to…?"

"Rip my head off, punch me till my lungs are floating in my own blood and make my life a living hell, not necessarily in the order I've said it? Yes."

"I'm way over all that dreadful past you and I have in common. My spiritual counselor says that this thing we're having today is an opportunity for me to make amends with my history and start from scratch with all of you." There is nothing more terrifying in this world than a Quinn Fabray, known for her passive-agressiveness, telling you pretty peaceful stuff with a white smile drawn on her face. And if she hasn't passed through a security checkpoint and you're not sure if she's carrying any gun, knife or poison; even worse. Wait a second. You can't detect poison that way. Man, that girl is a danger. Poor Berry.

"Why don't we go to the choir room? They're waiting for us," Rachel said as she headed out of the bathroom. "Because I don't want to be alone with you in a place without any eye-witnesses," Rachel thought as she opened the door.

The way back to the choir room couldn't have been more awkward. "So… And… Well… Yeah, how are you doing? Fun in Yale?" the shorter one asked.

"I thought it would be better. I don't know… I'm thinking on giving my life a swerve."

"Oh, yeah, like what?" The adrenaline rushed through Rachel's veins, waiting to kick in in case she needed to run away for her life.

"Don't know yet. I have a vague idea, but… well, here we are, isn't high school the place to decide what you're going to do for the rest of your life?" She shrugged as they arrived at their destination.

"Keep me posted?" Rachel replied right before leaving her behind. She hadn't ever been happier to get to that room and ran to the safety of her man's arms. "Oh my God, I can taste the sulfur in my mouth," she said as she hugged Finn as tight as she could. Or that was what she thought before looking to her right and seeing Finn staring at her. At her hugging his best bro. Rachel turned her head up as she let go of the hug slowly and even more awkwardly than her walk with Quinn. "Oh, hey, Noah, when did you get here? Nice to see you. What a funny confusion, right?" She faked a nervous laugh and moved to hug her man, this time the right one. "Let's sing and go home, please."

Finn rubbed Rachel's back as he chuckled at Puck. But the attention wasn't focused on Rachel mistaking her boyfriend for another guy. The other five pairs of eyes were fixed on Quinn, with her hair falling down her back, her green eyes scanning them all with a devilish grin. "Hey there," she greeted as she spread her arms for a hug.

Mercedes and Mike were the first ones to welcome their friend. They hadn't seen each other since the wedding. What a moment. Perfect. Then she moved to hug the one who was supposed to be her brother-in-law. "You look gorgeous, girl," Kurt whispered into her ear.

"Trying my best." She winked an eye before stepping closer to the second awkward reunion. A brunette reunion that was leaning against the black piano, with her short-but-yet-not-indecent tube dress and her high heels. "Hello, Santana." Quinn's smile turned wider and faker.

"Hello, Lucy," the muse of Lima Heights answered very curtly. The only muscle she moved along with her tongue was her left eyebrow when she raised it.

"No hug for an old friend?" Quinn arched her eyebrow as well, cocking her head and opening her arms even more.

Santana remained still. "If you came for that mane I pulled out of your golden hair, Little Jesus has it. Don't know the use he's been giving to it, but I'm sure it's nothing holy."

"I came back for a hug."

"What hit you so hard with hugs? God… You ran out of them down in hell?"

Quinn gave the immovable girl one anyway, hooking her chin over Santana's shoulder. "Why don't I give you a ride around there and you find out by yourself?"

Just when the blonde was about to pull back, Santana wrapped her arms around Quinn's waist and whispered the same way she was doing right next to her ear, "there's nothing I'd like to do more than that."

"What about ruining my life again?"

"Always happy to give everybody what they deserve."

"Okay, call Brits and let's say a little prayer. You know what I mean," Quinn said out loud, bright and happy while she moved to cup Puck's face and kiss him in his cheek. "How are you doing?"

"Alright." Puck's words were few and sad. But we'll catch up with the state of the Quick later; we have to finish the round of hellos and other unnecessary awkward moments.

And then it came the last, but not the least. Quinn moved to stand opposite to Finn, with Rachel between them. "I'm going to… what was the word? Steal him?" The blonde chuckled, as nice as possible though she was dying to grab Rachel's head and set it on fire while spinning her around the class.

"Hello, Quinn," Finn answered, but Rachel didn't move.

"Hello, Finn." There was no more interaction between them. Maybe it was because seeing him with a Berry attached to his arm was too painful for Quinn, but that clashed with the rumor of her selling her heart/feelings/kindness for a… Whatever, she's the Devil, you know what I mean.

Quinn was the first one to sit down on the circle of chairs, and then the rest followed, clockwise: Kurt, Mercedes, Mike, Santana, Rachel, Finn, Puck, and between the last one and Quinn, the ninth empty chair. "Are we waiting for someone else?" Kurt asked.

"My sweet sweet Porcelain, no, we're all here," Sue Sylvester replied as she arrived at the choir room, pushing a baby stroller. "Don't stand up, don't hug me, don't say anything if I don't ask you first. I've waited for you to finish your pathetic parade of oh-girl-I've-missed-you-like-a-lots because I don't want to be a part of the fakest proofs of care ever seen. You haven't seen each other in nine months. I could have gestated another champion in that time, so don't pretend that you give a crap." She sat next on the ninth chair, and left the stroller right behind her.

Puck took a glance at it and frowned. "You know you are pushing a trolley with no baby in it, right?"

"And you know I've just said that you don't have the right to speak unless I say so, Puckerman?! Of course I know it, you think I'm stupid like you all?"

Santana raised her hand, frowning as well. She waited for Sue to let her speak before asking. "And why are you… carrying that with you?"

"Because now you know that there's an unattended baby somewhere in this school, so we better wrap this up quickly. Or I could always sue you for negligent infanticide." Sue's answer left them all speechless and willing to get the reunion over with as fast as possible. "Schuester knows he can't control you, bunch of overlistened misfits, so he asked me if I could help you to be a family like you were the day of your graduation." She rolled her eyes. "And as you might have noticed, these are his words. I'll grant you with mine: it looks like you are torturing each other with your songs instead of torturing us, which I'm absolutely content with, but you might provoke some kind of riot and the blood may flow, and we don't want this school to be closured and I swear to God and to myself that if I end up single mother and unemployed, I'll haunt the few survivors of you and use them as food for my baby. Am I understood? Because I won't repeat again."

"Isn't Mrs. Pillsbury the one who's supposed to help us with therapies and group sessions and stuff?" Rachel asked.

"Barbra, since you are as self-centered as you seem to be and don't even bother to listen to the same thing I've already said three times, we'll start with you."

"You haven't answered my question."

"And I won't because if I had to answer everything you say, do or sing, I'd run out of saliva for like a year. So shut up and tell me, why are you the reason of all misfortune that's happened within the walls of the William McKinley High School and every time you come back you all go unstable and unbearably active?"

Rachel wasn't really dumbfounded by the lack of… by the lack of everything that was not hatred. "I think it's because as the historical leader of the New Directions, my presence here has a special effect among my fell…"

Sue went through the notes Will had given her earlier. A very complete dossier with every single event occurred within the Glee Club. "Cut the crap. I don't care. My question is: why don't you stop being a pain in the ass for 6 hours, take care of this mass of grease and dumbness you have as a boyfriend and quit messing with all of our sanities, especially with the so-called Blaine Warbler?"

The coach had touched a fresh wound. Under normal circumstances, Rachel wouldn't have thought about it twice and would have just gone along with Sue's indiscriminate attacks, but the new mother woke up a beast never seen before. "Who the hell are you to tell me what to do with my life?!" Rachel stood up and faced the older woman. "I love my man. I love this man." She pointed at Finn with a rageful index finger. "And I love him with my whole soul. Don't ever talk to me as if I don't, because he's my life. And the things I do with my friend Blaine will remain between me and him. And if anybody needs to know what's happening between Blaine and me, ask me and stop spreading shit. Am I understood?" She finished emulating Sue's sentence with her bloodshot eyes and her fists clenched.

"What's happening between Blaine and you?" Finn asked from behind the back of the girl. He regretted it just the second after the words came out of his mouth, but there was no turning back.

Rachel took another deep breath and left the room without even looking at the allegedly love of her life.

"Next order of business," Sue continued without even taking care of Rachel's storm out, "where's Aretha hiding her fat?"

* * *

Twenty-four minutes of harsh interrogatory and personal jokes later, the Suetherapy came to a long-desired end. As commanded, the alumni headed to the auditorium to prepare their performance for that afternoon. Quinn Fabray hurried to catch Noah Puckerman, who walked out of the choir room sooner and faster than expected. "Hey, can we… talk?" she asked as she wrapped her arms around his.

Puck got out of the hold and quickened his pace. "It's… I have… Mr. Shue asked me to tune the guitars."

"You haven't seen him yet."

"Yesterday, on the phone."

"He texted us."

"He might have texted you. He called me."

"The band boys do that."

Puck interrupted his flight and turned to the blonde. "They are taking a nap. God, Quinn, leave me alone!"

Quinn cocked her head down and gave Puck a cold, cold as hell look, raising an eyebrow slightly and standing with her hands on her hips. "I am trying to be polite, and nice, and talk to you like civilized adults. But if you keep running away from me… and not returning my calls or my mails…"

"It's because I don't want to talk to you."

"It was an accident!"

Puck lowered his head, split his hair and showed the girl the scar that was hiding under the mohawk. "No, when vases fall onto people, yes, that's an accident. But if you throw them at people, then it's not."

Quinn, exasperated, clenched her fists. "I was out of myself. Just a nervous breakdown."

"You have a condition and you refuse to take care of it!"

"I am bipolar! So what?! Lock me out of your life and act like I never happened?"

"I'm not going to do this again, Quinn." Puck resumed his walk, the same way he did four months ago after his visit to Connecticut. Quinn and him were living a… second? Third? Let's call it 'the X time.' A long distance time. But they were managing it. They saw each other one weekend in Yale, another one in Los Angeles and every single holiday in one of their beds in Lima. They had it all when they were together. Not a minute separated when they were in the same town, so they took really short showers and very long showers, depending on the number of people in the bathroom, you know what I mean.

The day of the incident, Puck was packing up on a Saturday because one of his boys had almost drowned cleaning a pool and he was in the hospital, so he had to work the next day. But the sweet sweet Lucy didn't believe him and after a lovely morning quickie, Quinn gave her Secret Santa gift a little dangerous use.

"Is everything okay, girl?" a wide-smiley Sam Evans asked as he found her in the hallway.

Quinn's eyes lit up and hugged her old more-than-friend. "I'm so glad to see you, cutest guy at school."


	8. Piano man

**8. Piano man**

"I fucked it, dude."

"Yep, that was nasty," Puck answered Finn as they stood next to each other in the locker room.

Finn frowned. "Nasty is that we are here. Breathing this air again."

"Yeah, dudes get stinkier with every generation." Puck coughed and laughed at the same time. "But… this is good quality memories, man."

The taller boy moved to sit on one of the benches with his legs spread and his elbows rested on them as he let his head fall back. "I've fucked it so madly."

"Already said that," Puck replied while leaning against their old lockers. "And you should be talking to her, not to me."

Finn rolled his eyes and sighed. "It's just… everything took over me. I hate it when she fights so bad for him."

"Jealous?"

"She's my girlfriend. I want her to defend me, not defend the damn… Fuck. I can't stand that the only thing in her head is Blaine."

Puck took a deep breath. "I know I shouldn't be telling you this, but… he punched a mirror in the bathroom."

"That's why he was running and Rachel was chasing him?"

"I think so."

"And why the hell is he that stupid to do that?!" the king of the wise shouted.

Puck looked into his bro's eyes. "Dude… he loves her."

Finn, with his jaw clenched, tried his best not to go all Blaine with his fist on the lockers. "Why do we have to deal with this shit? Why can't we have normal girlfriends that…?"

"That don't go crazy for other dudes or just plain and simple crazy?" Puck finished the rhetorical question.

* * *

"Could you look a little bit cuter in that dress?" Santana Lopez asked as she wrapped her arms around Brittany's waist, hooking her chin over the blonde's shoulder. Both of them looked into the mirror in front of which Brittany was fixing her hair.

Mrs. Pierce turned her face to plant a kiss on her woman's cheek. "Yes. If you got into it with me." They intertwined their fingers as they kept staring at the dresses. Dresses dry-cleaned with memories.

"Seems like a good moment for you to do a rerun of Don't Rain On My Parade," Santana said to Rachel as she passed behind the pair who turned to look at her, letting go of the hug.

Rachel chuckled weakly, without even stopping. "Not even in the mood for a self-rendition." They were expecting that her wearing that black dress with that red lace would bring the diva up, but she was too devastated, ever for the memories of the beginning of her glory days.

Santana tried to follow Rachel instinctively, forgetting she was still holding hands with Brittany. For a moment she felt in the same position as her friend, fighting with Finn to go help Blaine. But she learnt from her mistake and let her go, deciding to stay with the one and only woman in her life.

"You can go if you want. She needs a friend," Brittany said with a fond smile.

But Mrs. Lopez refused to leave the dummy blonde.

Rachel went to sit on one of the boudoirs at the backstage. She looked into the mirror, like those four years had never happened. So young. So beautiful. So filled with unfulfilled dreams. High goals on her flat shoes. And… for the first time in a long time, all by herself. What was the thing about that place that always made her end up alone somehow? It was a reunion, it was meant to be fun and… not to look at a boy with a bandaged hand through the reflection of the mirror you're sat in front of.

Blaine held Rachel's look for a few seconds, before Kurt took him by the arm to the hallways. "Come with me, mister."

"What are you doing, Kurt? I'm not in th…"

Kurt pressed a finger against the boy's lips. "Shut up and listen to me carefully. This intervention is on me and thank God that I'm not Santana because you'd be already walking on one limb less."

Blaine rolled his eyes. He had had a shit day, what was the reason that Earth that was keeping him from leaving and sending Kurt to fuck off? "Can you please go warm up or something?"

"No, I can't, because you're messing things up again."

"Oh, fuck off." Whatever the aforementioned reason was, it wasn't there any longer. He pushed Kurt away with his good hand and returned backstage, but Kurt held his hand before he crossed the doors. And for a second he recalled all the times he felt Kurt's touch before. His soft hand brought him back to the years when everything was easy, simple and straightly gay. Man, he missed homosexuality so much. "Please. Not today," he replied, not getting out of the grip nor even trying.

Kurt pulled the boy he once loved closer. He turned around and the New Yorker took a long glance at him from head to toe, in the Sectionals suit he never got to wear. "Don't do this to her."

"Don't get into this," he replied calmly, with his puppy eyes. God, puppy eyes instead of bloodshot, raging eyes, that was something to mention on the Thanksgiving prayers. "Just… don't, okay? This is complicated enough. I've already done what I had to do and it hurts and I don't want to talk about it and I don't want you to torture me because I have that department under my fine control."

"You know you haven't done what you had to do. At least you haven't made it right."

They heard Mr. Shue's voice calling them, so Blaine didn't waste a precious moment to run away from his reproaching ex. Kurt stood out on his own for half a minute before Finn joined him. "They are all already inside?" he asked while squeezing his brother's shoulder.

Kurt nodded silently, feeling the sour taste of the ashes of a burnt off love in his mouth. "Talk to her. She…"

"I know. I will but… later at home. We've made enough scenes for the whole week," Finn replied as they walked in.

Everybody was gathered around Will, who was wearing the black and red costume too. "Is anybody missing?" His eyes moved from the left to the right, watching every single one of his kids: Tina, with a confident look in her eyes, standing between Artie and Mike, who were joking about how they could share the same girl without going all Chuck Norris on the bathroom; Brittany and Santana, as happy as could be; Finn and Kurt just arriving, being each other's best support; Puck and Sebastian exchanging sexual techniques; Sugar eavesdropping on them and transmitting ideas to Rory and Joe; Mercedes giving Marley advice on how to make it to the top of the world, a fictional top of the world in her case; and Jacob, between Blaine and Rachel, trying to get an exclusive from both of them at the same time, obviously fruitlessly.

"Where're Ken and Barbie?" Tina asked. "Oh my God they're all Ken and Barbie again?!"

"Couldn't get my tie knot, sorry," Sam excused them for the delay and went next to Artie, opposed to Quinn, who decided to stand next to Rachel, giving her a 'friendly' slap on her ass.

Will stepped closer to the kids. "Okay, we are a lot and we've rehearsed just a little, but we've won too many championships to mess it up today, am I wrong?"

Most of them chuckled, especially the ones that hadn't been through emotional smashes during the past few hours. Principal Figgins' voice echoed through the auditorium on the other side of the curtain. "Dear faculty, students, students in detention, thank you all for coming. Today we're here to honor one of the most important members of our academy. He's been a crucial part of the William McKinley High School since…" Figgins frowned at himself and looked at his secretary. "Call him in tomorrow morning; we have to arrange the contract of this man. As I was saying, he's been officially a part of this school since tomorrow, but who better than the New Directions to carry on with this… tribute?" He moved the microphone away and whispered through the curtain. "William, remind me not to let you write a speech for me ever again. And the exterminators are on their way; Sue told me that you had a plague in the choir room."

"Plague?" Will asked as the curtain raised up.

"I think she was referring to us," Kurt, who was right behind the teacher, pointed out.

The teacher took a deep breath before resuming the introduction of the tribute. "This one is for, as our Principal said, one of the people without whom we would have never achieved any of the dreams we have in that case in the choir room."

Rachel stepped forward. "This one is for a man who's always been there for every one of us. No matter the time, the place or the melody."

"And because when we come back home, you're always there, for us. This one is for you, Brad," Finn finished before the music started.

_[Piano man – Billy Joel]_

_Will:  
It's nine o'clock on a Saturday.  
The regular crowd shuffles in.  
There's an old man sitting next to me  
making love to his tonic and gin._

_Rachel:_  
_He says, "Son, can you play me a memory?_  
_I'm not really sure how it goes._

_Rachel and Will:  
But it's sad and it's sweet and I knew it complete  
when I wore a younger man's clothes." _

_Rachel and Will with New Directions:  
La la la di di da.  
La la di di da da da._

_Finn and Puck with New Directions:_  
_Sing us a song, you're the piano man._  
_Sing us a song tonight._  
_Well, we're all in the mood for a melody_  
_and you've got us feeling alright._

Quinn and Sugar walked down to the audience and went to where Brad was sitting. They picked him by the arms and took him to the center of the stage, to a white grand piano on top of which he sat.

_Quinn:  
Now John at the bar is a friend of mine.  
He gets me my drinks for free._

_Quinn and Tina:  
And he's quick with a joke or to light up your smoke,  
but there's someplace that he'd rather be._

_Mercedes, Quinn and Tina with the New Directions' girls:  
He says, "Bill, I believe this is killing me."  
As the smile ran away from his face.  
"Well I'm sure that I could be a movie star  
if I could get out of this place." _

_Mercedes with New Directions:  
Oh, la la la, di da da.  
La la, di da da da da. _

_Artie:  
Now Paul is a real estate novelist  
who never had time for a wife.  
And he's talking with Davy, who's still in the Navy,  
and probably will be for life. _

_Kurt:  
And the waitress is practicing politics  
as the businessmen slowly get stoned._

_Kurt and Brittany:  
Yes, they're sharing a drink they call loneliness.  
But it's better than drinking alone._

All of them gathered around the piano, holding hands, wrapping their arms around one another's waists… together in the end. More or less.

_Blaine with New Directions:  
Sing us a song, you're the piano man.  
Sing us a song tonight.  
Well, we're all in the mood for a melody  
and you've got us feeling alright._

Funny fact: he was the least 'feeling alright' ever.

_Santana:  
It's a pretty good crowd for a Saturday  
and the manager gives me a smile.  
'Cause he knows that it's me they've been coming to see  
to forget about life for a while._

_Rachel:  
And the piano, it sounds like a carnival.  
And the microphone smells like a beer._

_Finn and Rachel:  
And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar  
and say, "Man, what are you doing here?" _

_Finn and Rachel with New Directions:  
Oh, la la la, di di da.  
La la, di di da da da._

_Will with New Directions:_  
_Sing us a song, you're the piano man._  
_Sing us a song tonight._  
_Well, we're all in the mood for a melody_  
_and you've got us feeling alright._

"Ladies and gentleman! Brad…" Will froze while he was raising the pianist's hand. After all those years, he didn't even know his last name.

"The one and only! Our one and only Brad!" Rachel came to save the day. "The 'the one and only' thing always works," she whispered into the teacher's ear during the standing ovation they received.

* * *

Finn and Rachel ran into each other next to the girl's locker. "I knew you'd come here," she said with a sweet chuckle.

"I knew you'd want me to come here to apologize and beg and… please stop me when you feel it's enough… and crawl…"

"Okay, that's enough." She laughed, she looked at Finn, she smiled and she felt it all… right. "You know me, Finn. You know every single thing about me. So I don't understand why you have doubts." Her face might have turned sad, but it was the kind of sadness only one person in the world could cure.

The boy held her hands. "Because I was afraid that I could lose you."

"You never will."

"I already have."

Rachel bit her lip and remembered that summer and that half-a-fall she had to spend without him. "You never lost me. You lost four months of our life together, but you never lost me."

Finn kissed her as if it was the very first time their lips collided. "How can you be so perfect?"

"It's mostly because of the power of the locker. Can bring us together, can set us apart and if you piss me off, can sever your fingers too." She granted Finn her cutest laugh and her warmest embrace.

On the other side of the hallway, a blue spectator observed the made-up from the distance as a second one came around him. "Hard to watch but still loving the pain, huh?" Quinn asked Blaine as she walked in circles around him.

"It's not what you think," he answered roughly, not even taking his eyes off of the couple.

Quinn chuckled. "It's not what I think, little Blaine, it's what I know. And what I've been through. You are one wig and one car crash away from being just like me." She stopped in front of him, blocking his view. "But I never did the self-inflicted wounds thing. Your love must be deeper though."

"What do you want?"

"Just checking on a colleague of misadventures and despair."

Blaine finally looked into the devil's eyes. "I'm not like you, Quinn. Nothing personal. You're a nice girl, we never knew each other too much, but I can tell what you're up to. And, so sorry, but I'm not into it."

"You'll stop protecting her at some point. I promise you that you will get tired of getting your face broken for someone that doesn't want you that way in return," Quinn cupped his face. "And when you are ready to quit your role of the aching one while she has it all, give me a call." She winked an eye at the short Warbler as she walked away.

"Are you flirting with me?" Blaine asked with a deep, deep frown.

Quinn chuckled. "Oh, no, honey. I've already had my share today."


	9. Wander

9. Wander

"Have you ever felt this lost before? Because I haven't. I am eighteen; I've been through two school transfers, two sexual redefinitions and three nasty break-ups. But today I'm just wandering."

Blaine Anderson was just the shadow of the boy he once was. He spent the days lurking up and down the hallways of the William McKinley High School, waiting for time to pass, a sign to lead him or a solo to sing. But he was lost, empty and all by himself.

"Spit it out," Sam Evans said as he sat next to him during lunch on Friday.

The short boy turned to look at the blond one. It was a weak stare, sad, like an undermined dike ready to give in and let it all go. "What?"

Sam chuckled and put a hand on Blaine's shoulder. "Dude, you look like crap. It's like watching a sardine bleeding out out of the water."

"Would have been funnier if you'd said 'trout out of the water'." Blaine made it to smile.

"Your audition is tomorrow, right?"

"Supposedly, yeah."

"What are you singing?"

"Don't even know if I'm singing."

He had a ticket to New York, an audition with Madame Carmen Tibideaux at Saturday 9:48 and nothing rehearsed. He had spent the last couple days buried in his bed, doing nothing. Just breathing.

And then Tina Cohen-Chang, who had developed a berric sixth sense when it came to subjects that affected her, dropped her platter on the boys' table, splashing soup all over. "You what?! Oh, no, you are coming. I can't go all by myself to that hole! Berry lives there!"

Blaine chuckled. "Since when are you concerned about me?"

"You wish." Tina made an eyeroll. "You have to distract her. You are like the ball of yarn to an evil egocentric alcoholic lucky bitch." Her face turned into a proud grin. "Man, my rhetoric is ready for New York hipster dorks."

Blaine eyerolled back at Tina. With his elbows on the table, he rested his head on his hands, looking deep into his plate of soup. "Don't call her that."

"What? A… damn, I forgot what I said. A bitch and you try to remember the rest."

"Don't call her that," Blaine repeated weakly.

Sam and Tina's eyes met across the table. The girl knew, thanks to her brand new berric sixth sense, that it was time for an intervention. But the boy didn't get it that easily, so he just frowned and let his disturbed friend take the lead. "Okay, little bird, what the hell is wrong with you? Stop defending her! She's a bitch, she's been playing with you, she doesn't love you and she keeps you hanging on because you are her pathetic toy!"

And then Sam got it and was able to intervene. "Dude… Tina has a point. Your life can't revolve around one girl…"

"A girl that doesn't give a crap for you," Tina added.

"Rachel is my friend." Blaine took a deep breath. "And she cares about me…" he kept on slowly, dragging the words out of his throat. "And… we are friends." A tear fell into his soup. "And I am moving on." And he broke down. "I have to move on." Blaine stood up and headed out of the cafeteria, but both Sam and Tina held his wrists.

"Dude, we know what it is to be the one left. And you have to dwell on it, but… not at the cost of your own life!" Sam tried his best to cheer his friend up. He recalled the time when Quinn dumped him, when Mercedes left, when… well, his current dating status was still unclear. Spoiler alert: the boy was getting some action, but with Fabray, so it doesn't count as 'action action', just danger spiked with horny diabolic sex. "Mike Finned you, didn't he, Tina?"

Tina sighed. "He didn't Finn me. We agreed to break up."

"And lie about it because you didn't want to look like Rachel," Sam replied. "Anyway, Blaine, let us help you, man," he said as he looked into his friend's red eyes.

Blaine agreed to sit back down. "I… I feel like I can't breathe. I want to call her. I want to talk to her. I need to see her. And this is hard as fuck." He was a mess and he was taking it all out of his chest finally.

"Then talk to her." Sam shrugged. From his point of view, everything was easy to do. "Just a text. A 'how are you doing' or an 'I'll be there tonight if you want to work it out' is enough. You don't have to make a proposal and stuff."

"Under different circumstances I would just go and mind my own business because I have no interest in getting involved in this bullshit you have going on, but… we are talking about Berry. We all know how to fix things with her." Tina stood on the table and made a sign to Jacob so that he would start recording it all. What she didn't know is that he had spent the whole lunch getting graphic material of Blaine's breakdown for a blog documentary he was producing: 'How To Hit Rock Bottom in Less Than 75 Songs.'

_[How to save a life – The Fray]_

_Tina:  
Step one: you say we need to talk.  
He walks. You say, 'sit down it's just a talk.'  
He smiles politely back at you.  
You stare politely right on through. _

_Sam:  
Some sort of window to your right.  
As he goes left and you stay right.  
Between the lines of fear and blame  
you begin to wonder why you came._

_Blaine:_  
_Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend_  
_somewhere along in the bitterness._  
_And I would have stayed up with you all night_  
_had I known how to save a life._

Blaine dried the tears off his face and stood up on the bench along with Sam.

_Blaine with Sam.  
Let him know that you know best,  
cause after all you do know best._

_Blaine:  
Try to slip past his defense  
without granting innocence._

_Blaine with Tina:  
Lay down a list of what is wrong.  
The things you've told him all along.  
And pray to God he hears you.  
And pray to God he hears you._

_And…_

_Blaine, Sam and Tina:_  
_Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend_  
_somewhere along in the bitterness._  
_And I would have stayed up with you all night_  
_had I known how to save a life._

Sam wrapped his arm around his bro's shoulders. The funny thing is that the rest of the student body wasn't paying any attention to the number, though there was a massive green piano in the middle of the cafeteria (they ran out of purple paint. Figgins' economic policies).

_Sam:  
As he begins to raise his voice  
you lower yours and grant him one last choice.  
Drive until you lose the road  
or break with the ones you've followed._

_Quinn, walking into the cafeteria:  
He will do one of two things:  
he will admit to everything  
or he'll say he's just not the same  
and you'll begin to wonder why you came._

_Blaine and Quinn:_  
_Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend_  
_somewhere along in the bitterness._  
_And I would have stayed up with you all night_  
_had I known how to save a life._

_Blaine, Quinn, Sam and Tina:_  
_Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend_  
_somewhere along in the bitterness._  
_And I would have stayed up with you all night_  
_had I known how to save a life._

The other three kids frowned at Quinn's sudden appearance, but they were the Glee Club in the middle of an impromptu performance. No more explanation needed.

_Quinn:  
How to save a life. _

_Blaine:  
How to save a life_

_Blaine, Quinn, Sam and Tina:_  
_Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend_  
_somewhere along in the bitterness._  
_And I would have stayed up with you all night_  
_had I known how to save a life._

_Blaine and Tina:_  
_Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend (Quinn and Sam: Where did I go wrong?)_  
_somewhere along in the bitterness._  
_And I would have stayed up with you all night (Quinn and Sam: I would stayed up)_  
_had I known how to save a life._

_Blaine, Quinn, Sam and Tina:  
How to save a life. _

_Blaine:  
How to save a life._

Sam smiled fondly at the blonde girl while Blaine and Tina went to Jacob to ask him for the tape. "I wasn't expecting you here."

"It's funnier when I just drop by." Quinn returned the smile, as mischievously and playful as she could. "So… how is the little Warbler doing?" She sat on the table while playing with her hair.

Sam sat down next to her. "He's… doing fine. Yeah. But… you? What are you doing here?" He chuckled. "Not that I don't like it, it's just…"

"I'm not the one who holds on to her old life even though when she's more than done here?" She chuckled back. "You left me yearning for… a little bit more." Quinn got closer. Way closer than a lady should get, with a soft hand running up and down an inner thigh it shouldn't be running up and down.

* * *

"Good evening," Rachel whispered into Finn's ear to wake him up from his nap. He fell asleep, as usual, while catching up with his DVR. Rumor has it that someday he would finish season 7 of How I Met Your Mother, but that would happen when they were telling the story of their grandchild. Anyway, it was almost dinner time and Rachel had 'fixed' something. 'Fixed' in the strictest way possible because she had even messed the salad and had to fix the excess of vinegar with a disgusting amount of sugar. Yes. Sugar.

However, maybe dizzy due to the smell of that infamous bunch of lettuce floating on a bowl of dressing, Finn flipped over on the couch, turning his back on Rachel with a groan.

She rolled her eyes with a smile on her face and decided to let her man sleep. Rachel had to admit that they hadn't slept a lot that night. Make up thing and stuff of people in love when they have an apartment of their own and carnal cravings.

Rachel went to Kurt and Santana's apartment, looking for some entertainment while the the lazy boy got ready to get involved in the most dangerous culinary venture of his life. She knocked on the door just out of habit, but she came in as if it was her own house too. "Are you decent, available or…? What are you doing here and why weren't you yelling as usual?" she asked with an extreme frown on her face when she saw Jesse sitting on their couch.

"It's called rehearsal, and you have to take it to this nasty neighborhood when your co-workers decide to take days off just because they feel like it," St. James answered with a rough, yet not rude, look at Santana, who was wandering up and down the living room with a script she hadn't memorized in her hands. "Anyway, how are you doing with the kid?" he asked Rachel.

"Don't call him that," the diva replied sourly. The Blaine issue was a subject she had spent the last 24 hours trying to avoid, and though Jesse had proved (more or less) to be kind of a decent friend to her during their winter in the city, she preferred not to go any deeper into the topic.

"Use 'Frodo'. We invented it for something," Santana added as she let herself fall onto the couch. "Did he call or something?"

Rachel sat between the other two people. "Not me." And, at that moment, her phone buzzed.

"Flubbers needs a backrub?" Santana asked with a chuckle.

"No, Jacob's blog. A video update." Rachel hit play and waited for the 'New Directions Ruining Innocent People's lunches #28' to buffer.

"Why are you following that pervert?" the other girl said.

"I like his weekly Berriminders. Keeps my memory at school alive."

Jesse chuckled and raised his hand up in the air. "Ego high-five, please."

Rachel didn't let him hanging and the clap sounded loud right when the performance of 'How To Save a Life' started. The three of them watched it in with rigorous silence. A tense atmosphere only disturbed by a couple tears Rachel let run down her face and a string of curses Santana expelled when Quinn joined the song.

"To all these things we still can get right." Rachel read the first comment with her voice broken, written by someone under the initials B. A.

Santana, raging as usual when she had to see the face of the only person on Earth who could fight over the title of Queen of the Bitches with her, stood up and resumed her wandering. "Okay, omitting the fact that I don't like that that slut is still in Lima without my consent, what the hell is this boy trying to do? Wasn't he the one who said that you couldn't be friends anymore? The day he sticks to one final choice I'll buy him a condo in the Hamptons. Mother of God…" She sighed, bored by Blaine's unfitness to take definitive decisions.

"He's…" Rachel tried to find the words as she cleaned the smudged mascara off her face. Struggling? In pain? Being a pain in the ass? Suffering for her?

But her thought got interrupted by more knocking on the door. "Ten bucks on Finn saying that he's hungry," Jesse said as he went to open the door.

"I left him the dinner ready," Rachel said through tears and a weak chuckle.

"I see your ten and raise you twenty more. Nothing personal, we smelled it." Santana chuckled back at Rachel as she comforted her by rubbing her arched back.

"Speaking of the devil…" Jesse opened the door wide and stepped aside for the boy at the door to come in.

"Didn't like my salad, did you?" Rachel faked a smile for her man. A smile that faded away when she saw that Finn wasn't the devil Jesse announced.

Blaine frowned as he walked into the apartment with a suitcase in his hand. "What salad?" He dropped it on the floor, but the second he did it, he leaned down to take it back and run away. "I didn't think you would be here. I…"

Santana grabbed Jesse by his arm and took him out. "I'm going to fake I have to run some errands with this jerk even though all the stores are already closed. Give me a missed call when you're finished."

Once they were all by themselves in Kurt and Santana's apartment, Blaine sat down next to Rachel, trying to avoid eye contact, as Rachel played nervously with the hem of her shirt. "How are you doing? Scared?" the girl asked trying to break the one-foot thick ice.

"I'm going with 'Crying'. Strong enough and suits me like a glove," Blaine, awkward as humanly possible, replied. "Vocally, I mean," he added. "Not that I've spent the last days crying my guts out over you, which is pretty accurate too," he thought.

Rachel smiled. "Good choice. What time is your audition?"

"9:48."

"Use those four minutes the way you know how to use them, okay?" Instinctively, Rachel held Blaine's hand. It was their thing. The way she used to support him without any microphone or showtune needed.

Blaine returned the smile and they fell into a feared and long silence. He didn't know what to say. She was afraid of something she could say… So Rachel, leader by nature and expert at trying to get things right with her best intentions (usually failing), threw herself into their quicksand. "You are not staying at my place, are you?"

He shook his head, as emotionally devastated as usual. "Tina agreed to… trade couches."

"To all these things we still can get right," Rachel quoted Blaine's comment on the video of their performance.

It took him a while to realize what she meant with the unlinked sentence, but he couldn't do anything but chuckle at his own behavior. "I am ridiculous, I know."

"We can work it out, Blaine. I know we can."

He made it. Finally Blaine turned his head and looked into Rachel's eyes. "There's this thing that always happens to me. When I'm with you, I'm totally okay. It feels like… everything is alright somehow." He kept on as Rachel nodded wide-eyed. "But when we are apart… when I can't talk to you… Rachel, I'm in pain. And I think and think and think and think about it. I keep going over and over these last words you've said to me and all those I want to say to you the next time we see each other." Blaine sighed and thought carefully what he was about to say. "All these dreams are rotting inside my chest, Rach. I like thinking of you to sleep every night. I like this crazy idea of you, maybe someday, taking the chance and… being with me. But it's not healthy. It's not fair for either both of us."

Rachel sat there. Still. Not even blinking. She knew everything. No breaking news in Blaine's statement. But the fact that he was opening his chest and ripping his heart out for her… That was one of the bravest things anybody had ever done for her.

"And now we are here. Nothing hurts, nothing dies. But I know this isn't real. That I am a fool and I'm living an illusion that is not going to happen. So, no, Rachel, I can't sleep on your couch while you are in a bed with the man of your life ten feet away."

Rachel teared up. "How are we supposed to fix this if you can't sleep at my place?"

"Think of Finn."

"So Finn is the problem?"

"No, I am the problem. He is just the only thing holding me back."


	10. Whatever happens in NY stays in NY

**10. Whatever happens in NY stays in NY**

Kurt Hummel walked into his apartment. He dropped his satchel, exhausted after a long day at NYADA. The only thing the boy wanted to do was lay on the couch with a bag of hot popcorn and a movie to criticize with his roommate. "Please, tell me you have Bridget Jones or any romcom we can foresee." He sighed. "Tibideaux kept me working for two hours to get the round room ready for the auditions of…" Kurt stopped his blabbering when he saw Rachel curled up on the couch he should be already sitting on. "What happened?"

Rachel let another tear fall onto the wet spot of the cushion. "Nothing."

"Your dwarf came home. It's like a prelude of the hell breaking loose next year." Santana eyerolled like the bitch she was as she joined them from her bedroom. "Why don't you tell him why you've been crying, Rachel?" she continued roughly.

"Don't be that hard on her!" Kurt said as he sat next to Rachel's head, petting the broken girl's hair.

Santana sighed. "I'm tired of all this shit. What if Frodo gets into NYADA? Four years with these two up and down because he's stupid and Berry can't say no? I'm so sorry, but I'm not going to let that happen."

"He's not stupid," Rachel intervened weakly.

"He's in love, which is even worse." Santana's eyerolls kept coming one after the other to the point of having cramps in her ocular nerves.

Kurt rested his head on the back of the couch and took a deep breath. Yes, he was on Rachel's side (or Finn's, actually), but it was hard for him to listen that Blaine was in love, absurd and irrevocably in love with another person that wasn't him. "Where is he, by the way? Are both he and Tina staying at your place?" Kurt asked Rachel with a frown.

The girl finally sat up and tried to fix her hair, which was a little bit messy after all the sobbing. "Tina's supposedly staying with me and Finn and Blaine left with Jesse."

"Afraid of Santana going all Sauron on him?" Kurt chuckled, trying to chill thing between them. He stopped to think for a second. "Wait, are you telling me that Tina and Finn are…?"

Santana burst into laughter. "They had some issues to solve too."

* * *

While the guys in the apartment 2B were trying to deal with Blaine's suitcase dropping, there was a Tina Cohen-Chang looking for a hospice. She knocked on Finn and Rachel's door and heard a "the day this girl doesn't forget her keys…" as the man of the house approached to receive someone he wasn't waiting for, obviously. Tina rolled her eyes, though she was more than happy to be confused with The One and Only.

And if ten seconds before the Asian Diva Wannabe had rolled her eyes like a bitch, the moment the door was opened she had to use all the strength she had gained on her ocular muscles so her eyes didn't fall right to the floor at the sight of a naked Finn Hudson pointing at her with… his… How to say it? The head that was raised to say hello wasn't the one with the nose. He blushed, she freaked out, Little Finn kept pointing threatening at the girl. And there is no need to go on with this flashback due to obvious reasons.

* * *

"It's never pretty the first time you face Finn's ding-a-ling," Kurt said once he managed to stop laughing his shiny ass off. "Anyway, Rachel, you should go home and… yes, talk it out with Finn."

"About his trying to stab Lady Chang with his Berry feeder?" Santana frowned. "I'll agree with Kurt only if you tell him what's going on with Frodo. Do not keep this thing from him. Finn might be dumb as fuck, but he's suspicious and if you make him think this is bigger than it is…"

Rachel stood up and took a deep breath. "I might lose his trust."

"And another thing below that. Now you have competition for the scepter, girl," Kurt finished the conversation with another guffaw.

The girl went back home. She came in using her keys, and found her man sharing dinner with Tina on their couch. Chatting, laughing… having an unexpected nice time. "Having fun without me?" Rachel asked with a smile as she kissed her man hello. She sat on the coffee table, right opposite to the other two people. "How was the flight?" She smiled at her guest too.

"As good as too many hours next to your sobbing pet can be." Tina shrugged and chuckled along with Finn.

Tina attacking people (and especially people she was jealous of) wasn't something that surprised Rachel, but Finn laughing at Blaine… No, that wasn't acceptable for her, and even more when Finn was aware of the other boy having a hard time. Rachel gave her man a harsh look and stood up. "It's not funny." You recognize a diva when she can make a storm out in her own house.

Finn looked at Tina once his girl had locked herself in their room. "I'm so tired of all this shit…" His tone changed from the mocking jock voice to the sound of an exhausted man who had been putting up with another dude crawling behind the love of his life for more than half a year. "And I truly want to be supportive and be on her side but…"

"You don't want to share what is yours and even less with someone that…" Tina stopped herself. She knew that her words could only stir up Finn's already-bad temper and getting involved in that Colombian telenovela wasn't precisely what she had gone to New York for.

He turned from his head-on-hands pose to look right into Tina's eyes. "What? Please, finish that phrase." He really wanted to hear that his suspicions weren't unfounded from another source that wasn't his worn out mind.

"We all see how it is between Blaine and Rachel when they are together." She spared the boy the cute words of what a perfect couple of midgets they were.

"Do you think he can… take her away from me?" He was nervous, worried, actually fearing the day that he stopped being Rachel's choice.

Tina sighed. "Honestly? If I were you and I was mentally ill enough to want Berry by my side for the rest of my life, I would be extremely cautious and not give her any reason to kick you out."

Finn sighed back. "I am the problem. I am the only thing holding her back."

* * *

Jesse St. James was a lucky man. 21 years old and he had a nice apartment in Broadway, very close to the theater where the musical he was starring in was about to premiere next month. Yes, the biggest shows rarely run in summer, but he knew that little by little he would get to the top he longed to conquer.

Places in such a centric and famous neighborhood are whether more expensive than that fart of Britney Spears in a jar that was on eBay a couple years ago or box-of-matches-sized. Jesse's could only be related to the extremest of the extreme cases of tiny flats.

He opened the door and let Blaine in. Even someone of the size of the Little Warbler felt suffocated between those very close walls. He dropped his suitcase at the foot of the bed, mostly because if you were in that room, you had to be next to the bed. "Might be a miniature place, but a man without a big bed isn't a man," Jesse said as he closed the door. He pointed at the other two doors, which were at the sides of the bed. "Right one: bathroom. Left one: closet. If you wake up in the middle of the night and feel like taking a dump, do not proceed if you find cashmere scarves."

"Noted," Blaine replied as he analyzed the rest of the living room/kitchen/bedroom/house. On the right of the bed, a stove and a minifridge, right behind him a plasma TV hanging on the wall, and on the left only a piano with lots of notes, music sheets and papers on top of it. "So… are we gonna…?"

"Sleep in the same bed? I know your plans were to sleep smelling Rachel's hair, but this is what you get." Jesse chuckled as he moved to the kitchen side of the room to fix himself a drink. "In case you need it, I have a headband of hers. But use it in the bathroom, don't wiggle the weiner in the bed. Whiskey on the rocks? Mad Men's finale left me very classy. More than usual." He shrugged as he offered Blaine a glass.

The boy took it appreciatively. One of the perks of being in love with a girl you kissed for the first time while you were drunk is that drowning your sorrows in alcohol still reminds you the fuck out of her. "Thanks," Blaine said as he sat on the bed and poured it all down his throat.

"Easy, cowboy." Jesse chuckled as he refilled Blaine's glass and started drinking his. He took his boots off and moved to sit on the center of the bed. "Okay, I don't know exactly why I have to babysit you…"

"Because I'm your penance if you want them to accept you after all the shit you've put us through," Blaine interrupted him. Once again, his size made it easy for the booze to get to his head and grow balls. Oh, drunk balls, so practical and so regrettable at the same time. We'll talk about them later anyway.

Jesse kept chuckling. "I like you, boy. You are like a young, naïve and selfless me. We'll fix you if you make it tomorrow."

"If I make it tomorrow," he repeated, stressing the first word with a sour despondency.

"Oh, please, you are the most worthy duet rival I've ever had."

"Duets are not about rivalry. They are about partnership." Blaine's eyes filled with tears as he recalled all the moments he had shared on and off stage with Rachel. "They are about being the perfect counterpart of the other person."

Jesse put the glass down on his nightstand and stretched out on the bed. "You have spent too much time with the New Self-Deceptions. You won't sell yourself to Tibideaux tomorrow with that attitude."

"That's why Rachel and Kurt made it and you didn't?"

"Nasty. I like it." Jesse moved to the edge of the bed and sat up to start playing the piano. He tried to find an appropriate melody, but he wasn't a duet man and his repertoire was 100% me-myself-and-I style. "What are you singing tomorrow?"

Blaine, who had spent the whole conversation sitting with his back towards the host and staring at a spot on the floor as if he was having breakfast after a night of insomnia, turned around to sit on the center of the bed, right behind Jesse. "'Crying'."

"You have your muse, you have your sadness, and you already have way more emotional depth when you're standing still than most of your competition tomorrow. I tell you, Mr. Anderson, nine out of ten applicants for NYADA are soulless automata that sing and dance like perfectly calibrated robots."

"And you were one of them. There is no show choir in Ohio that hasn't been forced to see your Bohemian Rhapsody at least five times." Blaine laughed.

Jesse nodded. "I sold my soul for an excessive talent. I never loved and did my best under the spotlight at the same time. But, kid, you already have a foot in that school if you sing moderately well and don't have a breakdown."

Blaine remained silent. He was finishing the last sip of his drink and started thinking why he should take advice from the same Jesse St. James that only cared about himself. But he was exiled, devastated and willing to hold any hand that supplied him with a merely half-true glimpse of support.

"Leave it all cried out tonight. On-stage messes are gross and pathetic."

_[Hope there's someone – Antony and The Johnsons]_

_Jesse:  
Hope there's someone who'll take care of me.  
When I die, will I go?  
Hope there's someone who'll set my heart free,  
nice to hold when I'm tired._

_Jesse with Blaine harmonizing:  
There's a ghost on the horizon  
when I go to bed._

_How can I fall asleep at night?  
How will I rest my head?_

_Blaine:  
Oh I'm scared of the middle place  
between light and nowhere._

Though he hated it, Blaine let his emotions break free once again. There was no sad song that didn't remind him of the girl of his dreams. No moment of solitude when he didn't long to be next to her.

_Blaine:  
I don't want to be the one  
left in there, left in there._

_Blaine with Jesse harmonizing:  
There's a man on the horizon.  
Wish that I'd go to bed.  
If I fall to his feet tonight  
will allow rest my head?_

_Blaine:  
So here's hoping I will not drown  
or paralyze in light._

Jesse looked over his shoulder and found his new mentee openly in pain. Red eyes, dry mouth, singing words as he tore his heart out and tried to revive it with his bandaged hand.

_Blaine:  
And godsend I don't want to go  
to the seal's watershed._

_Blaine and Jesse:  
Hope there's someone who'll take care of me.  
When I die, will I go?  
Hope there's someone who'll set my heart free,  
nice to hold when I'm tired._

Blaine could barely finish the verse. He felt embarrassed and tried to run to the bathroom, but he fled to the left instead and could only chuckle when he opened the door and found himself staring at Jesse's shirts.

"Let's go to sleep," Jesse chuckled back.

"We better, yeah." Blaine eyerolled weakly at himself and moved to his suitcase to bring his pajamas out.

* * *

The stairs of NYADA were crowded with nervous applicants, self-confident applicants and even a passed out applicant. All kinds of teenagers whose fates were at stake that morning. Too many of them trying to grasp one of the 20 chairs in the freshman class of the New York Academy of Dramatic Arts 2013-2014. Actually, considering that Rachel's name was already scratched all over one of them, only 19. That's a piece of information that Santana dropped on every single boy and girl right before he or she walked into the Round Room to audition. "It's call destabilization of the competence, and if they are not tough enough to put up with the fact that you're a privileged little bitch, they aren't fit to spend four years next to you," the Lima Heights icon replied to Rachel when she tried to stop her from scaring the shit out of the other candidates.

"Oh! That was so sweet!"

"Actually it wasn't. Thank God we started in Glee in sophomore year, because a fourth year would have made us take a very bloody and terrible road."

Both friends chuckled, but their moment of laughter got interrupted by a text sent to Rachel's phone. "Finn says he got us five seats in the first row. Where are the rest?"

"Kurt is trying to squeeze Tina into a super fancy dress. He used another adjective, but I'm not gay enough to memorize that string of… whatever. No fucks given, you know what I mean. And Jesse is on his way with your man."

"Shut up." Rachel's mood turned from 'I slept okay, I can fake stability in my life, do not disturb it' to 'You had to bring it up, huh, bitch?'

Santana recognized her mistake and apologized. "How was it last night with your big man?"

The girl took a deep breath and rolled her eyes. "Didn't talk. Just slept. Not even a good night kiss. I was too pissed off."

"Do not let Blaine get between you two," Santana warned pointing at her friend with a raging finger. "In three hours this circus will be over till they get a letter saying that they can go fuck themselves somewhere else, we'll go to the graduation and never see their faces again. Don't mess it all up."

Blaine and Jesse arrived before Rachel could reply to Santana's rough comment. She had never seen Blaine as handsome as that day. Well, she had because he was wearing the same outfit he wore at Finn and Quinn's half-wedding, but the large amount of alcohol Drunken Berry took erased it for good. "Hey," Blaine and Jesse greeted at the same time. "Where's Finn?" the latter asked.

"Already in. I'll take you," Santana offered herself kindly and went inside with Jesse. "And I'm not leaving you two alone for you to talk, it's because I don't want to see or hear any shit you do. I'm so done."

Rachel fixed Blaine's tie. "You know you are going to kill it, don't you?" she said with a wide smile on her face.

"Yeah."

The eyes Rachel found once she finished tightening the knot were not the same ones Blaine had when they said goodbye the day before. There was something weird, something… strange. Not his usual pain. He looked different. "Is everything… Are you okay?" she rephrased slowly.

A shiver ran up Blaine's back. His eyes froze as they locked with Rachel's. He saw the same kindness, the same friend. But no, something had changed within him during that night he shared with Jesse, in the most complete and strict sense possible.

* * *

**I hope you enjoy plot twists as much as I do.**


	11. Welcome to the Round Room

**Side note in order: the first song is incredibly complicated, so if you manage to picture/listen to it all in your heads, you'll be my personal heroes for the rest of this fic. I trust you all have keen-enough imaginations.**

* * *

**11. Welcome to the Round Room**

They all knew. They all knew it all. Sitting in that first row in silence, with the vivid image of Blaine and Jesse piercing their minds was a torture even harder than the applicants blowing the notes they were supposed to shine their best at. Finn and Rachel holding hands. The boy rubbing his thumb on his girl's bracelet awkwardly. On Rachel's right, Santana rolling her eyes at Jesse, who was next to her, every time she recalled what her co-lead had just told her.

Blaine was standing in the back of the Round Room, wandering up and down the rugged floor, trying not to get overwhelmed by both his emotional and academic situation. "I can't believe you are not nervous," he mumbled to Tina, who wasn't moving at all. She was just there, standing gracefully, in a beautiful dark blue night dress that fit her perfectly, though it wasn't very appropriate for an audition. Anyway, she felt pretty, oh so pretty, and witty and ready to sing the most challenging song anybody could have ever performed in that architecturally bizarre room.

"Nervous? Nerves are for lambs when they go to the slaughter. I am Tina Cohen-Chang and I'm here to rock these poor souls' lives over." She snapped her fingers sassily and high fived an astounded, yet proud as hell, Kurt.

He hugged her and checked on her from head to toe. "Girl, this is a makeover and not Quinn Fabray dying her hair pink. I can't even recognize you."

"Tina Cohen-Chang," Carmen Tibideaux called with her deep, imposing voice.

The girl granted both her 'mentor' and her competition a confident smile before she walked down the aisle to the front part of the room. "This is the same blue as the streaks I used to wear."

"She is right. You are not the shaky hands kind," Kurt told Blaine as everybody applauded Tina. "Are you okay?" He held Blaine's hands strongly. Supportively.

Blaine let out a sight as the ovation faded off. "I think I am." Was he just lying? Lying to Kurt? Lying to himself? Or maybe it was the truth and he was a way of reassuring. "I think I am." He nodded with a light frown on his face.

On the stage at floor level, Tina took an elegant bow before introducing herself. "My name is Tina Cohen-Chang, and I am going to sing the most difficult song I've ever sung."

Rachel moved her lips according to the words she taught her Asian clone the night before and winked an eye at her.

"Which one will it be?" Madame Tibideaux asked in a not-amused tone. She had spent the last hour and a half watching too many boys and girls filled with dreams and plans of greatness which had almost all ended up in a big sizzle but no steak.

"One of my favorite numbers from one of my favorite musicals, Les Mis," she answered with the brightest of the smiles, not letting the director's apathy bring her down.

Carmen rolled her eyes with an involuntary lack of discretion. "If it's I Dreamed a Dream, I'll raise the tuition a 5%," she whispered in the ear of the blonde teacher sitting next to her.

"I'll gladly pay the whole revenue of the school if I don't have to see another egomaniac little loser singing On My Own. I'm so sick if these girls," Cassandra July replied with the same enthusiasm.

Rachel leaned in and intervened. "You eyes, ears and pockets will appreciate this one. I can tell you. Rachel Berry, by the way, soon to be…"

"This is the infamous Rachel Berry who got a special treatment?" Cassie stopped paying any attention to Rachel to talk to the director of the school.

"Rachel Barbra Berry herself," the same one added eagerly as she held her hand out for the teacher.

Mrs. July chuckled and got comfortable in her seat. "Something tells me I won't forget your name. Nor will you mine."

_[One day more – Les Miserables]_

Everybody's eyes opened widely once they recognized the melody of a song that has (or had) no human way to be sung as a solo. Actually, everybody but the ones who were more concerned with their own personal issues than with the audition of a too self-confident young woman.

_Tina:  
One day more.  
Another day, another destiny.  
This never-ending road to Calvary.  
These men who seem to know my crime  
will surely come a second time._

_One day more._  
_I did not live until today._  
_How can I live when we are parted?_

_One day more.  
Tomorrow you'll be worlds away  
and yet with you my world has started.  
_  
_Rachel:  
One more day all on my own._

_Jesse:_  
_Will we ever meet again?_

_Blaine:_  
_One more day with her not caring._

_Finn:_  
_I was born to be with you._

_Kurt:_  
_What a life I might have known._

_Santana:_  
_And I swear I will be true!_

_Tina:_  
_But he never saw me there!_

Blaine and Finn, standing up, face to face across the room. Defiant.

F_inn:_  
_One more day before the storm!_

_Blaine:_  
_Do I follow where she goes?_

_Finn:_  
_At the barricades of freedom._

_Blaine:_  
_Shall I join my brothers there?_

_Finn:_  
_When our ranks begin to form._

_Blaine:_  
_Do I stay and do I dare?_

_Finn, looking down at Rachel:_  
_Will you take your place with me?_

_Tina with Blaine, Jesse, Kurt, Rachel and Santana:_  
_The time is now, the day is here!_

_Jesse:_  
_One day more!_

_Tina:  
One day more to revolution.  
We will nip it in the bud.  
We'll be ready for these schoolboys  
They will wet themselves with blood!_

_Finn:_  
_One day more!_

_Santana, rolling her eyes:_  
_Watch 'em run amuck._  
_Catch 'em as they fall._  
_Never know your luck_  
_when there's a free for all._  
_Here a little dip._  
_There a little touch._  
_Most of them are goners_  
_so they won't miss much!_

_Blaine, Jesse and Santana:_  
_One day to a new beginning._

_Finn, Kurt and Rachel:_  
_Raise the flag of freedom high!_

_Blaine, Jesse and Santana:_  
_Every man will be a king._

_Finn, Kurt and Rachel:_  
_Every man will be a king._

_Blaine, Jesse and Santana:_  
_There's a new world for the winning._

_Finn, Kurt and Rachel:_  
_There's a new world to be won._

_Blaine, Finn, Jesse, Kurt, Rachel and Santana:_  
_Do you hear the people sing?_

_Tina:_  
_My place is here._  
_I fight with you!_

_Blaine:  
One day more!_

_Tina:  
We will join these people's heroes. (Jesse and Kurt: I did not live until today.)  
We will follow where they go. (Rachel: One more day all on my own.)  
We will learn their little secrets. (Finn and Rachel: How can I live when we are parted?)  
We will know the things they know._

_Blaine:_  
_One day more!_

_Tina:_  
_Watch 'em run amuck._  
_Catch 'em as they fall._  
_Never know your luck_  
_when there's a free for all._

_We'll be ready for these schoolboys._

_Blaine:_  
_Tomorrow we'll be far away._

_Santana and Tina:  
Tomorrow is the judgement day._

_Tina with Blaine, Finn, Jesse, Kurt, Rachel and Santana:_  
_Tomorrow we'll discover_  
_what our God in Heaven_  
_has in store._  
_One more dawn._  
_One more day._  
_One day more!_

The whole audience, Tibideaux and July included, burst into the biggest, loudest and most impressive standing ovation ever happened in the New York Academy of the Dramatic Arts. And then, with that bow she took, Tina Cohen-Chang knew that she had found her place. She made it.

* * *

They made a break after Tina's audition. The applicant walked out of the room surrounded by her friends. Rachel had her arm wrapped around the girl's waist, commenting on her performance and the things she would have done differently (and better). Following them, Jesse, Kurt and Finn, trying to make some small talk as they decided whether they waited for Blaine and Santana or avoided an even more awkward moment together.

The muse of Lima Heights joined Blaine at the back. She looked into the boy's eyes to find out that he wasn't in the mood for any reference to The Lord of the Rings or his height, so she picked the nice way and hugged him. "You know you are a little bit stupid, don't you?" she said as she rubbed his back.

Blaine rested his head on Santana's shoulder and hugged her back. "I am. I am." He let go of the hug and sighed once more. Sighing was about to become his new favorite hobby. "And I need a favor."

"You got yourself into this crap. I am not going to take you out. Deal with Jesse J yourself."

"No. I… I need you to keep Rachel out during my audition."

"Are you freaking kidding me, Frodo? You cannot kick her out. Literally, it's Berry, she already thinks this is her house."

Blaine resumed his wandering. "What if… what if… if... What if I have a breakdown?"

"Choking during an audition isn't contagious." Santana chuckled. "And you are a fool if you think you can avoid her for the rest of these four years. Well… Frodo, how to say this? You are Frodo, you get ten solos per week. If you don't want her there, you are going to have to get her expelled."

Blaine started tearing up. "Just distract her. Gimme three minutes. I don't need anything else. I'll ask Tibideaux if I can audition now before people come back."

Santana headed out. "Tell her that your gay father is having a stroke and your useless presence at a hospital wasting a year of your life might save him."

* * *

Once Kurt and Tina had left the group for the girl to change her clothes into something more comfortable/less excessive, Rachel approached Jesse during one of Finn's take-a-leaks. Side note: the size of the bladder isn't proportional to the size of the body, it's like one of those urban legends about the length of the… well… of the length of a man. You know what I mean. But since this is not a story focused on the penis of Finn Hudson, I'll move to what Rachel told her male doppelganger.

Jesse put his phone down and looked at Rachel, who was wearing the most inquisitive, yet not angry, facial expression ever seen. And we are talking about the same Jesse and Rachel of the egg incident of '10. "Can I help you with anything?" he said perking an eyebrow, trying to avoid the conversation that was bound to happen. "I am an artist in Twitter. If you don't give the artist his space to create, you're cutting his wings. And I can't afford another follower draining after the Oscars debacle."

"Did you sleep with Blaine?"

"Yes."

And then, the hallways of NYADA went cold. For ten seconds of nailing each other against the walls with their eyes. Rachel's breath was heavy and her fists and jaw were clenched. There was like a halo of rage and jealousy fading into fear of losing Blaine all around her. The only thing she could identify in Jesse's look with his perked right eyebrow was pride and vanity. "Okay, I won't get into the reason that moved you to… do… stuff with Blaine. Specifically with Blaine. I'll just ask the obvious thing," she calmed down as she spoke. "When the hell did you become gay?"

Jesse chuckled the usual way he puts on airs. "Rachel, this is New York/the real world. Sexual ambiguity is a reality. We swim in a vast sea of hungry fishes that can give us tons of jummy meat if we feed them properly."

"This is the worst metaphor for bisexuality ever heard and you are a jerk."

"Come on! Don't get jealous. I thought you and I were a thing of the past. You can't hold on to that egg any longer, Rach! It's not healthy for you nor for the homophobic image you gave off with that hurtful comment," he replied with a fake victim tone.

Rachel's eyes filled with tears. "I thought we were friends."

He took a deep breath. "Rachel, we are friends. And I promise you that this is not any kind of vendetta. Actually, one of the many and fortunate causes that made this event happen is the friendship we all share." He smiled kindly and cupped the girl's face. "So chin up, go…"

"What do you mean?" she interrupted her ex-boyfriend. "What do you mean by that?"

"By what?" Jesse asked back coldly.

"You slept with Blaine because of our friendship. The friendship of all of us? What does that mean?" Her frown became more and more pronounced as she started thinking of conspiracy theories too offensive to be said out loud.

Jesse started getting nervous. "What? I… I'm not following you. We had a couple drinks, an impromptu piano duet and then there was the spark." He shrugged. "Nothing you and I haven't already done. Hello? Is it me you're looking f…"

"Do not quote Lionel and do not play the dumb card on me, Jesse St. James. Answer the question. What does the friendship of all of us have to do with you having sex with Blaine?" she inquired again, this time with much more severity.

The former Vocal Adrenaline star started walking away from Rachel. He might be manipulative, cruel, delusional and worthy of one hundred punches in the balls, but not a liar. And definitely not a liar towards the girl he once loved (or faked to love). "Ask your man. I know nothing." Okay, he can lie but just a little and for good reasons. Let's see 'good reasons' as anything that helps himself to feel superior to the rest.

Once all by herself in the hallway Rachel noticed that there was music sounding in the Round Room. She walked back inside and saw Blaine on the stage/rug nailing the last note of his song. 'Crying over you.' She looked for his gaze through the crowd of standing applauders. Their wet eyes collided, but Blaine took his away. And that tore Rachel apart.

Blaine crossed the Round Room to the back of the auditorium. He kept his head down, trying to avoid Rachel's eyes as his legs rushed out. He was over. He was done. So done. He did what he had come to do. But Santana's hand gripped his wrist and stopped him before he could leave the place.

"You nailed it. But you haven't done it right."

Santana's words weren't judging him, just a friend telling another friend that he had made a mistake. Because leaving Rachel as devastated as she was, without any reason, just standing there full of support for a friend that wasn't making things easy for her… That was not right at all.

"If you don't talk to her before you go back to Lima I swear to your favorite goddamn deity that I will haunt you down and bring her your balls." She rolled her eyes and chuckled. "Nah, she already has them. But I will definitely hurt you. So talk to her."

Blaine finally walked out of the Round Room and Santana went to the front row, to their sits, next to Rachel. She helped her friend in her attempt of hiding her tears and sorrow while the rest of them joined them. One by one, Finn, Kurt and Tina occupied the seats. "Where's Blaine?" they all wondered.

"He has already performed," Rachel answered swallowing her tears and looking up to the ceiling.

Finn clenched his fists and wrapped an arm around his girl's shoulders. He tried his best neither to say anything about Blaine nor to start cursing on the boy. "We can go home. There's nothing else for us to do here," he comforted Rachel. "Or no one to support." He was kind, he was nice and he was polite, but when pissed off, Finn could be as bitchy as the rest of the gang. Everything is contagious but beauty. And thinness either, as Santana would have pointed out. Long life to the Auntie Bitch.

Rachel chuckled weakly as she cleaned the smudged mascara off her face. "You are right." She stood up. "Let's go home."

That moment, once everybody was back from the break and all the seats were already taken, Carmen Tibideaux raised her voice to announce the next applicant. "Quinn Fabray."

There are faces that have a place in History. Mona Lisa's, The Scream by Munch and the expressions of these fellas when they heard the name of the Devil Herself from the mouth of the director of NYADA.

"What the hell did she just say?" Santana asked with a sassy, yet shaky, finger.

But there was no need to answer that question. With a wide grin on her face, Quinn placed herself on the rug on the front of the Round Room before the eyes of the astonished audience. Following what it looked like a tradition imposed by Mr. Hummel, Quinn was wearing the costume they wore at their first Regionals, though this time without a seven-pounds girl inside of her. "My name is Quinn Fabray, and I want to audition with something different from what you've been hearing all morning." Flirty yet elegant smile denoting her self-confidence and that she knew how to play her cards.

Rachel sat back down. Actually, Finn had to make her sit down because her body (especially her eyelids) was totally unable to move.

Three girls positioned themselves behind Quinn. They were dressed exactly like the applicant. And, following the blonde's lead, they left the kids in the front row even more speechless. Except for Santana, whose 'what the fuck is going on here and why do I want to set this place on fire right now?' made every single head turn to them. The girl's reaction had a reason to be. That reason was that Quinn's entourage/chorus was made out of known faces. And one of those faces was her girlfriend's, a.k.a. Brittany S. Pierce, followed by Mrs. Marley Nobody-Loves-Me Rose and Sugar Motta (Pianos Motta sponsors this audition).

_[Rain on your parade – Duffy]_

_Quinn:  
I wish you well.  
I hope you survive.  
I hope you live, oh baby, so I can watch you cry._

'_Cause I know in time you'll see what you did to me_  
_and you'll come running back._

_I'm gonna rain on your parade._  
_No, I won't take it again._  
_And I'll keep raining, raining, raining over you._

_I'm gonna rain on your parade._  
_No, I won't take it again._  
_And I'll keep raining, raining, raining over you._

_I pity the fools who believe in you._  
_'Cause I know someday now, they'll see your colors too._  
_And if you see a smile, besides my face, no I'm doing good now_  
_since you've been erased._

_'Cause I know in time you'll see what you did to me_  
_and you'll come running back._

_I'm gonna rain on your parade._  
_No, I won't take it again._  
_And I'll keep raining, raining, raining over you._

_I'm gonna rain on your parade._  
_No, I won't take it again._  
_And I'll keep raining, raining, raining over you._

_Uh._

"Sweet merciful mother of God," Kurt broke the silence of the first row.

_Quinn:  
I'm gonna rain on your parade.  
No, I won't take it again.  
And I'll keep raining, raining, raining over you._

_I'm gonna rain on your parade._  
_No, I won't take it again._  
_And I'll keep raining, raining, raining over you._

_I'm gonna rain on your parade._  
_No, I won't take it again._  
_And I'll keep raining, raining, raining over you._

"They know how to make statements of purpose back down in hell," Tina said with an approving nod as Finn, Rachel and Santana tried to get out of their shocks. "And the selection of the song? Impeccable."


	12. The gates of Hell wide open

**I've been asked who the endgame of the story was. Do not try to foresee any resolution for any character, because I am the first one who cannot do so :P And thank you so so much for all the support!  
**

* * *

**12. The gates of Hell wide open**

"I think I'm going to throw up," Rachel said as Kurt fanned her on the stairs of NYADA. She was moon pale. Cold sweat. Eyes opened as the doors she had stormed out from when Quinn's audition finished and her blood pressure dropped to the floor.

Kurt looked for a bag in the pockets of his jacket. "I… I don't have… Wait." He pulled a potted plant closer to the dizzy girl. "Do it classy and quick, nobody is looking."

Rachel rolled her eyes. "Oh my God… this can't be happening. What's she doing here? Do something." She let her head fall onto her friend's shoulder, both of them sitting on the same step. "Seriously, you have to do something. Anything. Call a priest. Bring the Ghostbusters. Drop an atomic bomb."

"Santana was supposed to have razorblades in her hair." Kurt shrugged as he gave his friend the best piece of advice he knew.

"Where's Santana? Oh, damn it. Tibideaux and July have seen us with her. If she cuts her throat in front of them we're never going to make it in this school."

Kurt frowned at Rachel's tone. He couldn't tell if she was extremely tired/out or really thinking of the possibility of an impromptu murder. "You already are, don't worry about the bloodshed. And Santana might be…"

* * *

And where was Santana? She had taken the choir girls to the ladies' room with as much discretion as possible. This means that she yelled and cursed in Spanish all the way down to the toilet. "You two first." She pointed at Marley and Sugar. "What the hell are you doing here? You weren't even friends with that bitch and you don't even know her! Actually, I don't even know you." She stopped for a moment. "Seriously, who are you?"

"I'm Marley Rose, I'm in New Dir…"

"Oh, yeah, the attempt of Berry number 215. Whatever. What are you doing here?!" she inquired with an intermediate point between rage and confusion.

Sugar stepped forward. "Okay, this is the deal. Quinn came the other day and asked us to help her with her audition for NYADA. She'd pay for the trip, the hotel and the everything. My dad is rich, so if I can buy friends, she can buy vocal back up." Her smile denoted she was 100% convinced of what she was saying.

Santana rolled her eyes like the master in that subject she was. "Seriously? That's all? I mean, this explanation isn't even worth a paragraph of my deathly biography. Out." She pointed at the door.

"Would you know where Blaine is by any chance? Has he already auditioned?" Marley asked tenderly before leaving the bathroom.

"Yes, ten minutes ago and undercover because he didn't want Rachel Berry, the girl she loves and you try to emulate, to be there in case he broke down and cried and squirmed and did all the shit he does when they are together and sad and petty and shit. Seriously, I'm tired as fuck of this story. Everybody knows it. Find your own 'Previously on this moron's life' which will last two phrases. First one: I'm lame. Second one and last: fucking take me to Mordor and throw me into the fire of the Mount Doom because that's the only way Santana Lopez will find the peace she deserves. Out!" Santana took the deepest of the breaths before she turned to Brittany. Once the other two were gone, she held Brittany's hand and turned her expression from the face of the leader of a bunch of rabid bulldogs to sweet tender loving eyes. "What did that son of a bitch force you to do, my love?"

Brittany stood still for a moment, not holding Santana's hands back. "She didn't force me to do anything. She is my friend and she asked me for a favor." The reply was sour and lacking of enthusiasm. Maybe that answer didn't need a party to be fully put into context, but there was none of the usual sparkle and unicornism in Brittany's words when she was with her girlfriend.

"Are you okay? No, you're not okay. What's going on? What's wrong?" Santana's concern grew second by second. "What has she done to you?"

The blonde pulled back. "She's been honest with me." She had her eyes fixed on a broken tile on the wall, refusing to have them lock on Santana's.

"What are you talking about?" Santana tried to cup Brittany's face, but she turned her face away. "Brittany, what's happening?" Fear. That was the only thing in the girl's voice. Fear of losing the most precious thing in her life.

Brittany turned her back on Santana, hiding her tears from the allegedly person she trusted the most. "You keep lying to me. You've been lying to me for almost a year. And before you say that committing information is not a lie, yes, Santana, for me it's a lie because this wouldn't be the first time and you know how it hurt me then."

"Commit? Comm…? Oh, okay, omit. I didn't omit any information because nothing that slut can say to you is true. You know every single thing about my life. Present, past and future. Everything, Brittany. I haven't omitted the most minimal detail." Her voice broke and a tear ran down her face, leaving a trace of black smeared mascara.

"You didn't have sex with Sebastian?"

Time froze for Santana Lopez. She didn't lie. She didn't omit that story. Yes, she had had sex with Sebastian Smythe during their crisis after Finn and Quinn's disastrous wedding, but in her defense they weren't technically together because Brittany broke up with her. Due to an omission of information, yes to that too. "Brittany, I came clean with that. I told you that I had slept with Sebastian and you told me that you didn't care. I haven't lied to you, I haven't hidden any information from you. This is not new, babe."

"That's the problem!" Brittany turned around, crying in a way that broke both their hearts. "You keep treating me as if I'm retarded or something! You make me believe things that are not true!"

"What are you saying?!" Santana lost her temper along with the steadiness of her hands, now shaking as if she was having a stroke.

"You didn't sleep with Sebastian! You had sex with him! You didn't tell me you fucked him!"

Santana chuckled with relief. "Oh my God… that's the problem? Brittany, baby, when I told you that I had slept with Sebastian I meant that I'd had sex with him. It's a synonym. Just… You… It's alright."

She stepped forward to hug the blonde as her heart slowed down, but what she got in return was a shove. "Don't you see?! Yes, Santana, you are smart. You are intelligent. You are the most clever person I'll ever met and that's why you're here having a ball and I'm not. But that doesn't mean you're entitled to play with me as you please. I have my rights!" She headed out the bathroom, but turned around before leaving. "I trusted you. I trusted you not to hurt me. Not ever again. And I find out that you haven't changed. You play, you scheme and you hurt. And I kind of admire you for being so sharp, but not when you use that to manipulate me."

"Brittany, I haven't manipulated you! You don't get it! It's…"

"Hell, no, Santana! I don't get it! I'm stupid, that's the point you made so clear!"

And the diva of Lima Heights was the one left behind, being only listened by that broken tile on the wall, because there was no more audience for her excuses.

* * *

"Okay, you've played your joke. Such a funny prank. Nice to see you and that stuff, but now tell me what the hell is going on here with this charade." Finn Hudson was on his nerves as he followed Quinn Fabray down the hallways of the New York Academy of the Dramatic Arts. And hell yes if that girl could walk fast. We are talking fast for a boy with legs as long as Finn's and his slight overweight as well. Poor poor panting Finny.

Quinn chuckled gracefully on her way to the dressing rooms. "Haven't you already said it? I'm just playing such a funny prank on you. It's cute that you try to talk as if you have had some kind of course on rhetoric and arts of the fine talk, but don't try to do it in front of people you don't know because they wouldn't hold back laughter the way I'm doing it." She cupped Finn's face before picking up the pace. "People can be cruel, honey."

"She's tough." Tina whispered to Finn as she tried to pull him. "Come on! Hurry up! We're losing her!"

The blonde stopped all of a sudden. She turned around to face her chasers and rolled her eyes with boredom. "Okay, now I am the one who has something to ask. Tina, why the heck are you acting like Finn's cane and since when are you two friends?"

"I saw his ding-a-ling. Which is something you have seen as well. What a nice circle of trust we have here, don't you think? And now that we are sharing one another's secrets, since when are you interested in applying to NYADA?"

Quinn chuckled. "I'm not interested. I don't give a fuck about this thing you call… college? Is this even a college? Whatever this place is. If after four years of Glee Club you aren't able to understand the meaning of a song like the one I've sung, then you are definitely deaf and I don't know how you have survived the traffic of this city. As I said, the song says pretty much everything." She turned to Finn and pressed her index finger against the panting chest of the tall boy. "I'm going to rain on your parade."

"This is Rachel's dream. Don't mess it up. She hasn't done anything to you," he replied.

"Who said anything about Rachel?" Quinn played the fool card with a fake frown, trying to look innocent of her devilish actions.

"Quinn, I don't know why you want to go all Revenge on us, but…"

Finn's words got interrupted by the most epic entrance of Santana Lopez ever. This time she had both her heels on, which was a total heroic deed, given the speed she was walking at. "Hold that piece of crap down because I'm going to teach her who to mess up with!" she yelled as she crossed down the hallway with her hand fully open and ready to smack all the teeth out of Quinn's perfect mouth.

The threatened girl pushed Finn and Tina aside, leaving Santana a clear way to hit her with her best slap. "Bring it, big girl." She perked an eyebrow defiantly.

Santana stopped her heels less than an inch before her nose crashed into Quinn's. Her bloodshot eyes locked on the blonde's, which were cold and holding back the lock as if her life depended on it. Santana made a fist in the air as she brought her arm down slowly. Very slowly.

Quinn slapped the brunette's face softly twice and winked an eye. "Just as I thought." She went around her opponent and walked away chuckling on her way out.

Tina was the one who broke the silence/astonishment. "Okay, just for the record, I just lost the little respect I had towards you."

* * *

"In the movies it looks like there's always a cab ready for you to take it. We almost arrive here late this morning." Marley Rose chuckled while approaching Blaine Anderson.

The day turned into a gray development of events that happened under a clouded sky instead of under control. The outsides of NYADA were crowded with broken applicants who had failed in the most important moment of their careers, families, friends, supporters in general and the few performers who thought as themselves as part of the 20 chosen. 19 for Blaine and the other who knew of the existence of Rachel Berry. However, Marley was a girl with huge eyes and an equally huge image of what/who she was looking for. The boy with the puppy eyes.

He turned around and for a moment forgot about the audition, Jesse, Rachel, the cabs and the old lady who had spilled coffee on his black blazer. "What… Wait… No… What are you doing here?" He chuckled back, with half a smile on his face.

"I missed your audition, so just wanted to check on you."

That always-candid smile comforted Blaine. He recalled those moments when everything was simple. Once he had made amends with his sexuality and found a girl that looked suitable for him. Those days when being with 'his special friend' was the cure for all the worries and the headaches the pressure of the day he was living right then produced him. "I think I did alright," he replied, widening up his smile. "But you could have called though," he joked.

Marley laughed along. "Yeah, I know, it's just… I decided to pass by and say hello." There was a relaxed silence. Which Blaine totally appreciated after two long days of awkward wordless moments with everybody around him. "And I didn't know if you'd pick up the phone."

"We are friends. I wouldn't hang up on you." Blaine squeezed Marley's shoulder, trying to transmit the certainty that she hadn't lost both a friend and a lover.

Though they were having such a sweet and tender moment, something distracted Blaine from it. Jesse St. James was walking down the stairs of the entrance of the school while making signs to the little Warbler so that they could have a little talk in private.

Blaine excused himself for a moment that Marley used to go upstairs and change her clothes after trying to catch Blaine in a rush before he fled. He followed Jesse around the corner and stopped when he did. "Okay, I don't usually do this stuff, but I'm growing a conscience and there's something pissing me off I have to take out," the bigger boy started. "First of all: are you in love with me?"

Anderson could do nothing buy laugh. "Seriously?" Blaine stopped laughing when he realized that yes, Jesse was asking him for real if he was in love with him. After one night. After one of the many nights he had fallen asleep thinking of Rachel. "No, Jesse. I am not in love with you and this is not the way love works. At least not in the real world." He frowned, actually doubting whether he should ask that question back or not. Boys, girls, we are talking about Blainey Anderson. Of course he asked it back. More and more complications he wouldn't know how to get out of are like his biggest ambition in life.

Jesse burst into laughter as well. "How could I fall for you so easily? I mean, you and me… It's totally understandable that you couldn't resist my charms. You wouldn't be the first. Just checking on you and making sure I'm not going to find your bled-out body on my bed when I come back home tonight."

"Because that wouldn't be the first time either, right, you show-off?" Blaine chuckled. Hell, he really loved those last ten minutes when everything was smiles, détente and friendship. Maybe friendship was a word too big (or maybe even too small at the same time) for him and Jesse, but… Whatever, I'm not going to get into semiotics business.

Jesse chuckled back. "We'll talk about that later. Go get that girl. She looked cute. Hurry up or you'll regret it." He perked an eyebrow. "I'll give you three minutes for you to get ahead of me."

And while Blaine was walking away, Jesse sighed. Rachel might be suspicious of the reasons that moved him to sleep with her suitor, but the suitor himself was definitely more than happy with someone that didn't judge nor give a fuck about the gender he was supposed to like and the people he liked and the mess it all carried with it.

One less front to face in case of rebellion. Just one Berry to take care of not asking too much and not getting the answer she needed to blow everything up.


	13. California Dreamin'

**13. California Dreamin'**

"Hello, my people. My name is Brittany S. Pierce and I am your majestic second-legislature president. Kneel down and pay your respects to your sovereign."

All the kids in the classroom muttered as Brittany smashed the gavel against the table. It wasn't a respectful/fearful silence. No, not at all. They were just freaking out because… well, because usually you don't start a meeting by proclaiming yourself the new emperor of a high school. When the school year is almost over. And when you are a dethroned Cheerio in your second senior y… Why the hell am I trying to explain Brittany's behavior when that's not among anybody's abilities?

"Okay, she definitely lost it. What the heck did you give her during the flight?" Artie asked Sugar, who was sitting next to him.

"The question is: why did you let her take a plane without knowing how bad the sequels of taking a person like her so up in the clouds will be?" Sebastian corrected.

Oh, right, I have a correction for myself too: when I said 'all the kids in the classroom' before, I meant 'the Glee Club without Will in a room that wasn't the choir room.'

"We're gathered here today to discuss this." She turned over the blank first page of pad on the easel. She underlined around what was written on it with a black marker as the rest of the people there kept freaking out.

"Brittany, it only says 'Testing 1-2-3'," Sam pointed out.

The blonde excused herself and turned that page over. "Sorry. Something I learnt from Mr. Mercury when he took me on tour this spring break."

Blaine let his eyelids defy the laws of physics and blinked a couple times trying to fight the cramps he got because of opening his eyes so widely. "Let's not go deeper into this thing, please," he said as he put his hands on the table.

"That's what she said," Jacob added. One of the many and invaluable contributions of his to the Guinness World Records for getting more you-are-disgusting looks in one second.

"Hence I don't know what she said or who she is in this regard..." Brittany finally went back to the subject at hand. "What do I do this year for the prom," she read the large paper out loud.

"What happened to the prom committee?" Tina asked.

Brittany sighed. "The Government has to recycle itself. It's part of the evolutionary process of politics. That and that I can't remember their names. And their faces either. And I'm pretty sure they were ghosts. You are the only people whose existence I'm sure of. Except for Joe. I'm going through an atheist phase and that thing that you're Teen Jesus… I'm a little bit skeptical, though girls run the world and I'm up for a female God."

Nobody said anything. They remained silent for like a minute. Silent, reflective, and listening to Sugar's clicking on her Blackberry. "Brittany, we should be rehearsing for the Nationals we have on Saturday. Just in case you forgot about it," the captain of the New Directions intervened, putting some sense in that absolute waste of time Brittany called 'life or death emergency meeting.'

"Blaine Warbler, if you are going to sabotage my term of office, please leave this room before I prove that that hair gel of yours is not mallet-proof."

So Blaine rolled his eyes, sighed, stood up and walked out of the classroom without even thinking about it twice. "This is totally absurd."

"He's going through a rough phase," Tina tried to excuse the boy in front of the rest of the group.

Artie perked an eyebrow. He definitely wasn't happy with that relationship. "Now you're his manager or what?"

"The City is pretty intense and we are going to share it for four long years. I could use a faithful gay friend as the rest of the great divas in history."

"We all saw that little gang Rachel has in New York and you want part of it. End of discussion," Sugar sentenced as she put her phone down. "By the way, I nailed Quinn's audition, so I demand a solo for next Saturday."

"Granted." Brittany smiled as she pointed at her friend with the mallet.

Tina raised her palms into the air. "I am the captain of this ship. You can't give people solos without my previous approval."

"Actually, Mr. Schue is the one who says who sings and who doesn't sing," the boy in the wheelchair pointed out. "We've never worked this way. Not even with Rachel here."

The Asian girl rolled her eyes and once they went back to their original position, she gave Artie the harshest of the looks. "What's wrong with you today? Can't stand my overwhelming success as a New Yorker?" And what she found as a reply was another eyeroll served with the other kind of roll Artie was a master at: the roll out the room. "Don't wheel away from me when I'm talking to you!" she followed the boy out as well.

"Why is everyone leaving?" Brittany asked, confused by the sighs and parallel conversations that mixed in the air as the rest of the New Directions abandoned the room. "I haven't adjourned the session."

Marley and Sam were the last ones to leave. They wanted to make sure that Brittany was alright, mostly because they knew how lonely and lost and unable to pack her own bag she got every time she had an emotional blow. Well, Sam was more used to Brittana break-ups. Marley just did some little bonding with Brittany on the plane to New York. "It's curious how differently people react to loss, isn't it?" the blue-eyed girl said as they walked slowly to the choir room.

"Ones go all Napoleon. Another just passive aggressive." Sam chuckled. "Had fun in the city? Got your closure?"

Marley chuckled back. "Well… we barely talked but… yes. At least it's not my passive aggressiveness to handle." And other stuff people who are trying to move on tell themselves to sleep. "Anyway. You and Quinn doing okay?"

"She told you guys, right?"

"Why wouldn't she?"

They kept laughing and discussing the dangers of having too much faith in something as unstable as a long distance relationship when the only thing you have shared with the other person is a couple quickies and 2 am conversations via text. "Time will tell," Sam believed. "Only time will tell."

* * *

"Welcome to our last Monday as national champions." Will's words left the kids speechless. They were so fucked up that not even Will Schuester believed in them? He chuckled before he turned to write a huge 'twice' on the whiteboard to make the New Directions sigh in relief. "We have to add this to our title. And I think that now we are readier than ever."

Tina raised her hand. "Mr. Schue… we are still one member short."

"Leave him alone!" Sugar intervened as she wrapped her arms around Blaine's neck from her seat behind him. "I thought you two were friends! Stop picking on him."

"She wasn't…" Blaine said as he frowned, as usual, not knowing why everything ended up badly for him. "Whatever."

Will spread his hands, his palms facing the floor in an attempt to calm them down. "Everything is under control. We won't lose the whole week waiting for the twelfth member, so we will have the band boys with us on stage."

"Mr. Schue, not that I question your decision, but we could definitely use another female voice," Artie pointed out.

"We've spent the whole year doing weekly recruiting numbers, Artie, I truly doubt a miracle will happen tomorrow," the teacher replied.

"The recruiting numbers, my stripper tours and trying to go all castrato on Rory. Nothing worked out. No girl power this year," Sam said with a shrug.

Sebastian leaned down on his seat to look at Sam across the room with a smirk on his face. "That's what you think, cowboy."

"Boys, boys, boys, boys. No time to lose. California is waiting for us! We've got a plane to LAX at 6 PM on Friday. The last two times the boys' number-girls' number-coral number setlist worked for us," Will continued. "And with no further ado, let's get going to the auditorium!" He got all captain-y with a fist in the air and left the room.

* * *

"Get up," Santana said as she stepped onto Rachel's bed.

The diva was lying there. One day more. She hadn't moved, spoken or eaten since the audition. Once Finn and her came back home around midday, she slipped between the sheets and forgot about the world.

Her friend began jumping and kicking her. "Oh my God, Rachel, it's Monday. One freaking pm. Even I am up. And even your bed-warmer, which I thank because I wouldn't be able to maneuver with his disgusting satisfaction face crawling up and down your dead body."

She was expecting some reaction toward the pun, but the only thing Santana got was a blink. She sighed. She was not the kind of person who gives up easily, but as she said herself… Monday, 1 pm. She wasn't up for tons of activity that early. So she sat down next to her lying friend and rested her head against the wall. "It is not the end of the world," she started speaking as she held Rachel's hand. "Let's see… my grandmother hates me because of my clam diet."

No reaction found in Berry's body yet.

"Because your boyfriend outed me," she resumed. "Or had something to do with it. I really don't remember, but that slap is mythic and in three millenniums I will be studied as an almighty goddess for that."

Still still.

"You and Frodo kissed. If that's not a worse end of the world, may God come down here and judge himself."

Nothing at all. And Blaine's issue was something that worked pretty fine to alter Rachel's psychological status.

"My girlfriend has left me. She literally dumped me because she has developed an inferiority complex and I don't know why she is so concerned about being… different." Insert here a ton of adjectives to make up for the fact that Brittany might have a serious mental condition. "And this time I think she might be more settled upon it than I think, 'cause I've never seen her as mad as the other day. So move that sorry ass out of bed and stop complaining, because I am the one truly fucked up in here."

Santana's words didn't sink into Rachel's conscious either. She just closed her eyes back and rolled over away from her friend.

"Seriously? That's all you're gonna do? You spent the last four years being a goddamn pain in the ass and today you're just going to become an autistic kid?! God, Rachel! Do something!"

* * *

"Let me be plain and simple: we are not going to win. There's no freaking way," Artie sentenced as him, Blaine, Brittany, Sam, Sebastian and Tina left the choir room after the rest of the group, led by an over-confident teacher. "Mr. Schue has good intentions, but we barely made it through Regionals."

Blaine sighed. "And I seriously doubt two performers are going to break their ankles on stage this time. We were lucky with the Warblers. If they hadn't gone that risky with the acrobatics…" Their Regionals performance? Nasty. A show of bones through skin. Legs of the strength of an actual warbler, they say.

"Yes, we were lucky, but those guys were more than done since I left," Sebastian added with a self-centered chuckle.

Tina nodded. "And we can't put all our expectations on Marley again. She's good, but…"

"She's no Berry."

"She's no Berry."

"She's no Berry."

"She's no Rachel."

The other seniors completed Tina's phrase, but Blaine, who remained silent as Sam wrapped his arm around his shoulders in support and Sebastian winked a non-lustful eye. In theoretical support as well.

They didn't say any other word until they reached the stairs of the April Rhodes Civic Pavilion, where Brittany was the one to break the ice. "It's L.A. Maybe we can ask Mercedes to help us or something." And yes, that wasn't a crazy idea.

"Too late to enroll in any class. Only extreme transfers make it weeks before the end of the classes," Blaine objected. "I can't believe Sue won't even let us borrow a couple Cheerios. At least one might be half the singer you and Santana are."

"I could steal one or two, but there's no way the Coach is going to revoke my ban from the pompons then," she continued back in her usual tone of 'are you seriously saying that, girl?' But yes, she was totally up for stealing two cheerleaders with their uniform on. It had been eight months since Sue kicked her out of the squad and it stull hurt for her not to wear the ponytail. Literally, she didn't stop saying how it hurt when her hair pulled her head down along with gravity. Poor thing.

Sam started running his fingers through his hair nervously. "Lauren Zizes, Becky, a substitute teacher. Anything. We need anything."

"What's all the tension due to, pal?" Sebastian asked naughtily. "Long weekend no see your blondie?"

The other kids chuckled at the joke, but Artie, who aligned with his bro. "I get Sam. It's our senior year. I don't want us to be the promotion that lived under the shadow of the ones before them. Now I get why they were so obsessed with this victory on their resumes."

"I'm not smart enough to make it into a braniacs college. Arts schools are the best I can aim at and I definitely need the two-times national champions thing," Sam said with a sad but determined expression on his face. His hopes of leaving his stripper days behind depended too much on the result of their performance in Los Angeles. But he wasn't the kind of boy that made the whole world revolve around his dramas. He's no Berry either, I guess.

"Feel ya, bro," Brittany said as he fist-bumped Sam.

Sebastian frowned. "And what's your excuse to be so obstinate?" he asked Artie as they finished carrying him down the stairs. "Chang and Blainers have their NYADA and I don't really give a fuck, but what about you?"

"A long-term project." He grinned, keeping for himself the fact that he was trying to move his toes with his whole soul. "I'd definitely use that credit."

_[California Dreamin' – The Mamas & The Papas]_

As it usually happens, the music started playing in Artie's head, thinking of that as one of the last imaginary performances he would do in a wheelchair upon that stage.

_Artie with Blaine, Sam and Sebastian:  
All the leaves are brown (Brittany and Tina: All the leaves are brown)  
and the sky is gray. (Brittany and Tina: And the sky is gray)  
I've been for a walk (Brittany and Tina: I've been for a walk)  
on a winter's day. (Brittany and Tina: on a winter's day) _

_I'd be safe and warm (Brittany and Tina: I'd be safe and warm)  
if I was in L.A. (Brittany and Tina: if I was in L.A.)  
California dreaming (Brittany and Tina: California dreaming)_

_Artie, Blaine, Brittany, Sam, Sebastian and Tina:  
on such a winter's day._

_Sam:_  
_Stepped into a church_  
_I passed along the way._  
_Well, I got down on my knees (Brittany and Tina: Got down on my knees)_  
_and I pretended to pray. (Brittany and Tina: and I pretended to pray)_

_You know the preacher likes the cold. (Brittany and Tina: Preacher likes the cold)  
He knows I'm gonna stay. (Brittany and Tina: He knows I'm gonna stay)_

_Artie, Blaine, Sam and Sebastian:  
California dreaming (Brittany and Tina: California dreaming)_

_Artie, Blaine, Brittany, Sam, Sebastian and Tina:  
on such a winter's day._

They wandered up and down the stage, looking at how ignorant of their worries the other kids (the teacher included) were.

_Artie, Blaine, Sam and Sebastian:  
All the leaves are brown (Brittany and Tina: All the leaves are brown)  
and the sky is gray. (Brittany and Tina: And the sky is gray)  
I've been for a walk (Brittany and Tina: I've been for a walk)  
on a winter's day. (Brittany and Tina: on a winter's day)_

_If I didn't tell her (Brittany and Tina: If I didn't tell her)_  
_I could leave today. (Brittany and Tina: I could leave today)_  
_California dreaming (Brittany and Tina: California dreaming)_

_Artie, Blaine, Brittany, Sam, Sebastian and Tina:  
on such a winter's…_

_Artie, Brittany, Sam and Sebastian:  
…day._

_Blaine and Tina:  
California dreaming._

_Artie, Blaine, Brittany, Sam, Sebastian and Tina:  
on such a winter's…_

_Artie, Brittany, Sam and Sebastian:  
…day._

_Blaine and Tina:  
California dreaming_

_Artie, Blaine, Brittany, Sam, Sebastian and Tina:  
on such a winters day._

It was in their hands to make that California dream come true. Theirs and only theirs.


	14. Correspondence

**14. Correspondence**

Tina dropped her phone on the piano as Blaine packed up his stuff after the Glee rehearsal. The auditorium was empty. She pointed at a url for the boy to open it. He pressed his index finger on the screen and perked one of his triangle eyebrows at the content of the image, but didn't say a word. Just kept packing up.

"And like that one there are already three out."

What Tina was referring to was the letters signed by Carmen Tibideaux herself that accepted the receiver into NYADA.

"Three that we know of. They're doing it fast this year. A couple months passed since Kurt's audition till the letter," Blaine replied as he slung his satchel across his shoulder and headed out.

Tina locked her phone, took her bag and followed her… friend? Where they even friends? Anyway, we'll see how the events develop later. "Sixteen more to go in the best case scenario." Yes, maybe they were friends, or at least kind of/soon-to-be, because that's the only reason for Lady Chang to waste an opportunity of reminding Blaine of Rachel and how unfair the world was due to the diva's V.I.P. spot in the Academy. "You doing alright?" she asked as they walked down the hallways.

Blaine sighed. "Nationals are this Saturday. I'm not doing my best…"

"Already know and hell already know to that second one too." Okay, that one was too good to just let it go.

He rolled his eyes and chuckled. "And I have things that require my complete attention more than… Rachel."

"A stage in Los Angeles, for example."

"A stage in Los Angeles," Blaine repeated as he nodded.

"Glad you stopped sobbing all day long." Tina held Blaine's hand as they walked. "On behalf of all of us: thank you very much."

They laughed together, both at Blaine's life of irrelevant despair and Tina's… Tina in general. Until a sweet voice called them from the other end of the hallway. The applicants turned around and let the door close at their backs before even crossing it as Brittany hopped her way to them.

"I've made up my mind, don't need to think it over if I'm wrong I am right, don't need to look no further this ain't…"

Tina raised her hand and pressed three fingers against the blonde's lips to shut her up. "You can do anything to Britney and Kesha. In fact, they kind of deserve you as their…"

"Musical representative in this high school and the whole show choir and cheerleading community?" Brittany finished the sentence after she licked Tina's hand away with her whole flat tongue.

"I'd say official put-to-shame-renditioner, but you can think whatever you want of yourself. Delusion is fine for your people."

"You're still not better than Rachel. Never were, never will, though you think you are. Welcome to 'my people,' biatch," Brittany replied with a sassy finger and a hair flip.

Blaine burst into laughter.

"What are you laughing at?! Shouldn't you be weeping your tiny ass off over Berry?!" Tina enquired as she blushed to a record-shade.

"Leave Blaine Warbler alone. He's just another victim of this Ponzi scheme called 'love'. And that's what I'm here for," Brittany resumed her speech as the other two losers frowned. "You and I are gonna go together to prom this Wednesday."

The alluded and his friend chuckled. "Brittany, are you asking me out?"

Tina pulled her phone out of her pocket again and started videocalling Santana. "I wanna see that face. I really need to see that face." She couldn't hold down her excitement until Blaine took the device from her hands to let Brittany finish her… thing to say.

"As I've said, I've made up my mind. And this year's theme is… no thanks to your help… drum roll please…"

The three of them stood there, in silence. One was waiting for an actual drum roll, the other two just freaking out as usual. "Where's Finn? Wasn't he supposed to be in charge of this stuff?"

"He graduated one year ago, Brittany," Blaine answered tenderly. Sweet sweet Blainers.

The blonde girl frowned. "And who's been doing the drum rolling since then?" She thought for a second along with her friends. "Oh, God, there hasn't been any. We really need something to be thrilled for."

"So… a prom theme like…" Tina gestured, hurrying the girl.

"Nonsense."

The other two pairs of eyebrows were raised. "Okay. What kind of theme is that?" Tina asked roughly.

"The one that I've been having in front of my eyes these five years and the one that's gonna win me that 20 feet tall statue in the courtyard. It's the best prom theme ever. Everything is forbidden, nothing is allowed."

"Everything is allowed, nothing's forbidden," Blaine corrected her.

She shook her golden head. "Nope, I've said it alright."

The boy smiled and nodded in acceptance. "Okay, this might be even good."

"Nice. I'll buy you a red corsage. Pick a nice dress and find me one of those duets where Finn just moved his mouth doing weird sounds while Rachel got all the glory." Brittany turned around and walked away. "And shave your legs. Anarchy doesn't entitle you to look gross in a dress."

Tina was the one to burst into laughter that time. Hell, if only Rachel could hear that even a year after her graduation her musical legacy keeps being a constant reference… Orgasmic, girl. Orgasmic.

* * *

In the living room, Jesse and Finn shut up when they heard Santana getting heated over Rachel's silence. The two of them were seated next to each other on the couch, drinking their second beer of the morning. They did talk. Finn complained about the situation with Rachel, Jesse rolled his eyes and replied with some sort of pun on how much that was Finn's fault for not giving her what a true star deserves because he was the true star there and brag brag brag brag. Until the clumsy one got tired of talking about his painful beloved one and moved to the other relevant order of business in their social circle. "So… it's been 48 hours since I haven't heard anything about Blaine…" Finn started off.

"Yeah. One of the perks of the vote of silence of the only person who's concerned about him." He poured down what was left of the present beer can and moved to the kitchen for another one.

"I mean… you don't know anything? Haven't you two spoken since he left?" Finn had to raise his voice for the other boy to listen to him from the kitchen.

Jesse came back with the third and fourth beers. "Why would I talk to him if you are the one who was his friend? I just outsang him once and had to hang out with him a couple times while you wanted to 'take Rachel somewhere nice' every time he came to the city." Okay, that needs some sidenoting:

When Finn wanted to take Rachel somewhere nice, he just had the sudden idea of having dinner in a not-roach-infested place nearby. I say "sudden idea" because it definitely had nothing to do with the fact that he always thought of these tasteful plans while Blaine was 24/7 adhered to his girl and he was jealous as fuck. Nothing to do with that. No. Not at all. Pinky swear.

So Finn shrugged. "Oh, I thought you were into him or something."

"Of course I am. You ask me to bang him and we get married." Jesse chuckled at his own sarcasm. "God, you're so dumb."

"I didn't ask you to bang him."

"Hey, dude, I need you to do me a favor," Jesse started quoting/impersonating, but he stopped for a brief parenthesis, "bad start. It looks like you wanted to bang me. Anyway, as I was saying…" He went back to Finn mode, "could you take Blaine to your place and distract him from Rachel? Things are… complicated and I don't want…"

The parodied guy interrupted the so-called-by-himself actor of the year. "Distract from calling her or… sleeping here with us… Not bang him! I didn't even know you were gay, man!"

"My gaydar is infallible and you are simply stupid," Santana added as she walked out of Finn and Rachel's room.

He didn't reply to the totally gratuitous attack. "Nothing?" He just focused on what he cared about.

The Lima Heights Adjacent girl shook her head and sat on the only free spot of the couch. "Honestly? I don't know what else to do. She's like… dead."

"Maybe we should let her hibernate. Give her time to…" Jesse stated, but got interrupted by Santana.

"Your only purpose in this group is to keep your mouth shut between one douchebag piece of crap you say and the next one. Stupid ideas are not what we adopted you for."

"Call Blaine."

The air froze in the room. Not because the little Warbler had gone from Frodo to Voldemort, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, but because Finn Hudson was the one who said the boy's name after the verb 'to call'.

"Firstly: I'm not calling that tiny bastard to set off another mayhem in here, and even less if we're giving him the power to do it from the distance, like those red buttons for dropping bombs while you're having tea with your lieutenant." Santana stopped bitching once she realized Finn wasn't in the mood for hurtful jokes and military-apocalyptic metaphors.

"We've tried it all and nothing worked out. He's her best friend. No matter what. Whether I like it or not," the tall one finally sentenced.

"You maybe have a point, but we haven't tried it all yet," Jesse mentioned. "As SLo says, it could be even worse. And… not joking, man, but you would be giving up by asking Blaine to do something you've failed at."

"A.k.a. he is able to take better care of Berry than you. My new favorite gay is right." Santana waved her hand at her co-lead. "Besides, does he really want to talk to her? The last time I saw him he wanted me to kick her out before his audition."

"He'll do it. I don't care if I have to go to Lima myself and beg on my knees." Finn couldn't take it any longer. He was decided to go all the way down and face an ultimate Blainchel rendezvous/full disclosure/that moment where the two short people started talking their feelings out just for the torture of saying out loud how deep into Rachel Blaine is and how incapable Rachel feels when it comes to romantic triangles. "This is make it or break it, guys. And I'm ready whatever may happen."

* * *

"Always a surprise to see you," Kurt said as he wrapped his white pashmina around his equally white neck and smiled at the girl that joined him on his way back home right after he had finished his classes for the day.

"My pleasure," Quinn replied once Kurt walked down the stairs of the entrance of NYADA.

"Girl, you know I love you, your perseverance, your hair and your everything, but I really don't think that we should be talking right now."

"Coffee with an old friend? We barely talked the other day," she replied with a devilish grin.

Hummel didn't actually know what to do. He never had any problem against Q. Actually, he had always enjoyed the refined style of the former head Cheerio, but his loyalty lied with his friends/family. "You know…"

The girl pulled a piece of paper after she wrapped her arm around Kurt's without his complete consent. "Yes, yes, I know you are friends with Rachel and you live together in that little cult built around the fear and hate you profess to me." She handed the paper to the boy. "I am not a monster, and you know that." She went on and on as Kurt read. "I am not an enemy. I'm just a girl looking for her place in the world." Her smile couldn't be any more rehearsed nor creepy.

"So you got in?" Kurt asked, even paler than usual, as he gave the NYADA letter back to Quinn.

* * *

The rest of the day passed very slowly in the apartments of the former losers. Kurt brought the news and the air became thick and cold. As if Fabray herself had been the bearer of the announcement.

Finn had tried to make Rachel speak/move/do anything. Santana too. And her bestest gay was not any less. The three of them agreed to turn to the last resort: the Skype event.

Kurt took his laptop to Finn and Rachel's living room. He sat on the couch between Finn and Santana and made those three clicks that some time ago brought the joy back to his nights in the form of night ritual with his boyfriend. The bowtie avatar became a webcam window and finally a gelled up boy appeared on screen, perking an eyebrow as he saw who the callers were.

"Thanks for answering," Kurt said with a smile. He placed the computer on his lap in a way that the three of them could see Blaine and vice versa. "You know we wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't an emergency." Like he hadn't been dying to call the little Warbler every single day since he moved to New York.

Santana rolled her eyes at all the arse-licking while Finn bit his tongue, fully aware that he needed Blaine's help, which wasn't a thing that provoked any pleasure in his body. "Frodo, not-gay to the point, the way you like it." The Lima Heights diva turned to her roommate and held his forearm. "Sorry, lady. I am the first one that curses the dreadful day this one found his straightness."

"I am busy, Santana, what do you want?" Don't know if Lil Blaine was busy, but definitely he was not in the mood.

"As I was saying, straight to the point," she resumed. "Berry's dying."

Finn intervened the second he saw how Blaine's face turned into a two-seconds-to-be teary messy gross wreck. "She's not dying." Hell he knew how it felt when you were given broken news you couldn't handle. "It's the Quinn thing and…"

"And your thing," Santana pointed out, stressing the 'this is your fault' implicit message.

"And your thing," Finn said with a slight sigh. "It's all too much and we think that maybe you could talk to her or…" The boy remained polite. He knew he was asking for a favor to someone that didn't owe him anything at all.

"Does she want to talk to me?" Once the shock wore off, Blaine went back to his high-and-dryness.

As no one answered, he swallowed and got ready to say his goodbyes. But Kurt was deft enough to make his final move. "Quinn got in. And we all know you're in too."

Santana fake-coughed. "Not so sure."

In return, Kurt elbowed her in the ribs. "Next time I'll pin you a boob."

Finally Blaine and Finn shared something (besides Rachel. Pun totally intended): the biggest of the eyebrow-raisings ever at Kurt's defense of Blaine.

"You are in," Kurt turned to look into the webcam once again. "There's no doubt. And I can't believe you are not going to be there for Rachel now she's so torn. I just can't believe that. So, please, don't go when I take you to the bedroom."

After these words and a very discreet nod from Blaine, Kurt stood up from the couch, laptop in one hand, leaving the other one free to open the bedroom door.

"We'll make it through," Santana said as she squeezed Finn's thigh supportively. Obviously, the sloppy boy frowned the shit out at such unexpected (and unbelievable) sign of affection. And she noticed what an ineffable picture they were in. "Lady Hummel's pheromones when he talks to Frodo. It's like crying when chopping onion to me. Failed teenage gay love brings the sucker out of me." She pierced Finn's eyes. "Say something to anyone about this and I'll break you this exact leg," she threatened while increasing the strength of the grip.

* * *

Kurt half-closed the door after him with his foot. "There's someone who wants to see you," he told Rachel with a kind voice tone.

The girl was lying there. Quiet. The sheets were covering her up to her nose so she could stare into the gloom of her stance. Her hair was a total mess, her eyes were swollen and her look was lost and empty. As it was becoming usual, she didn't reply to Kurt.

Hummel left the laptop on Finn's pillow and got out of the room, leaving the two friends alone.

At first, Rachel didn't even turn her head to see who was on screen, so the boy in Lima had to be the one to start off once he heard the door being closed. "Hey. You look like crap." Blaine chuckled, doing his best to put his feelings and urges to run away aside to help Rachel.

There was no response in her body but a slight squirm. Her eyes lit up a little.

"Rumor has it that you only stop talking and let other people talk once a year, so I won't waste this precious time." He was smiling every trace of sadness and grudge away. She needed him to. "You and I will get it all right," he spoke slowly. "But you have to fight. You can't just hide in your bed. Firstly because you can't let anyone or anything take your life away and secondly because this world cannot afford to lose you."

Blaine was making it. A weak smile was drawing on Rachel's face as a tear ran across her face when she finally shifted to lie on her side and look directly at the screen.

"And… I'll always be there for you, even though I might get lost and do stupid things and run away and stop talking to you and… fuck everything up again." His voice broke as he dragged those words out of his chest. "This is difficult for all of us. But it won't be any easier if we do it on our own."

He moved out of the range of the webcam for a moment and came back with his guitar strapped around his shoulders. "Remember the song we sang back then when everything seemed to be the end and that there was no solution and it all would stay broken forever? When you came back to the McKinley in September."

"'Wide Awake'," Rachel finally spoke. Finally.

"And after that we kissed and we thought that we… had done it wrong and everything would be so complicated and weird and…"

"And why the hell am I doing it with my gay friend?" She chuckled.

"But we survived. And it brought us together. And here we are."

_[Part of me (Acoustic) – Katy Perry]_

_Blaine:_  
_Days like this I want to drive away._  
_Pack my bags and watch your shadow fade._  
_You chewed me up and spit me out_  
_like I was poison in your mouth._  
_You took my light, you drained me down._  
_That was then and this is now._  
_Now look at me._

_This is the part of me_  
_that you're never gonna ever take away from me._  
_No._

_This is the part of me  
that you're never gonna ever take away from me.  
No._

_Throw your sticks and stones.  
Throw your bombs and your blows.  
But you're not gonna break my soul._

_This is the part of me  
that you're never gonna ever take away from me.  
No._

_Rachel:  
I just wanna throw my phone away.  
Find out who is really there for me._

_You ripped me off, your love was cheap._

_Rachel with Blaine:  
Was always tearing at the seams._

_Rachel:  
I fell deep, you let me drown.  
But that was then and this is now.  
Now look at me._

_Blaine and Rachel:  
This is the part of me  
that you're never gonna ever take away from me.  
No. _

_This is the part of me  
that you're never gonna ever take away from me.  
No. _

_Rachel:  
Throw your sticks and stones. _

_Blaine:  
Throw your bombs and your blows._

_Rachel:  
But you're not gonna break my_

_Blaine and Rachel:  
soul._

_This is the part of me_  
_that you're never gonna ever take away from me._  
_No._

_Blaine:  
Now look at me, I'm sparkling._

_Blaine and Rachel:  
A firework, a dancing flame._

_Rachel:  
You will never put me out again._

_Blaine and Rachel:  
I'm glowing, oh._

_Rachel:  
You can keep the diamond ring._

_Rachel with Blaine:  
I never liked them anyways. _

_Rachel:  
In fact you can keep everything.  
Yeah, yeah._

_Except for me._

_Blaine:  
This is the part of me  
that you're never gonna ever take away from me.  
No. _

_This is the part of me  
that you're never gonna ever take away from me. (Rachel: Away from me)  
No._

_Blaine and Rachel:  
Throw your sticks and stones.  
Throw your bombs and your blows.  
But you're not gonna break my soul._

_This is the part of me_  
_that you're never gonna ever take away from me._  
_No._

And Rachel Berry found herself sat up, with her arms wrapped around her legs and taking a deep breath ready to face everything anyone threw at her.


	15. Game change

**15. Game change**

In the center of the stage of a small off-Broadway theater, the two main characters of Shelby Corcoran's first play. Two teenagers that struggle against life in a not easy neighborhood in New York, where neither drugs nor other vices leave them live their lives without getting themselves involved. Final rehearsal sessions few weeks before the big opening. All the choreographies and lyrics memorized as their mothers' birthdays and one Santana Lopez wearing an extra layer of mascara in case her emotional barriers gave in.

_[Sober – Pink]_

_Santana:  
I don't wanna be the girl who laughs the loudest  
or the girl who never wants to be alone.  
I don't wanna be that call at four o'clock in the morning  
'cause I'm the only one you know in the world that won't be home._

_Santana with Jesse harmonizing:  
Ah, the sun is blinding.  
I… I stayed up again.  
Oh, I am finding  
that's not the way I want my story to end._

_Jesse and Santana:  
I'm safe.  
Up high.  
Nothing can touch me.  
But why do I feel this party's over?_

_No pain_  
_inside._  
_You're my protection._  
_But how do I feel this good sober?_

_Jesse with Santana harmonizing:  
I don't wanna be the man who has to fill the silence.  
The quiet scares me 'cause it screams the truth.  
Please don't tell me that we had that conversation  
well I won't remember, save your breath, 'cause what's the use?_

_Ah, the night is calling.  
And it whispers to me softly, "come and play."  
Ah, I am falling.  
And if I let myself go I'm the only one to blame._

_Jesse and Santana:  
I'm safe.  
Up high.  
Nothing can touch me.  
But why do I feel this party's over? (Santana: Oh, oh, oh!)_

_No pain_  
_inside._  
_You're like perfection._  
_But how do I feel this good sober?_

_Jesse:  
I'm comin' down.  
Comin' down.  
Comin' down._

_Santana:  
Spinnin' round.  
Spinnin' round.  
Spinnin' round._

_Jesse:  
I'm looking for myself…_

_Santana:  
Sober._

_Jesse:_  
_Comin' down._  
_Comin' down._  
_Comin' down._

_Santana:  
Spinnin' round.  
Spinnin' round.  
Spinnin' round._

_Jesse:  
Looking for myself…_

_Santana:  
Sober._

_Jesse and Santana:  
When it's good, then it's good, it's so good 'till it goes bad.  
Till you try to find the 'you' that you once had.  
I have heard myself crying. Never again.  
Broken down in agony and just trying to find a friend._

_Jesse:_  
_Oh._

_Santana:  
Oh, oh. _

_I'm safe.  
Up high.  
Nothing can touch me. (Jesse: Nothing can touch me)  
But why do I feel this party's over? (Jesse: Why do I feel this party's over?)_

_No pain (Jesse: No)_  
_inside. (Jesse: No!)_  
_You're like perfection._  
_But how do I feel this good sober? (Jesse: How do I feel this good sober?)_

_Jesse:  
I'm safe.  
Up high. (Santana: Up high)  
Nothing can touch me.  
But why do I feel this party's over?_

_Santana:  
Oh, oh, oh! _

_Jesse and Santana:  
No pain  
inside._

_Jesse:  
You're like perfection.  
But how do I feel this good sober? _

_Santana:  
How do I feel this good sober?_

Shelby Corcoran took her female lead backstage after the song. "You have three solos, entertain yourself," she told Jesse as Santana and she left the spotlight.

It was Tuesday, almost midday, a little bit early for star wannabes to have spent four hours rehearsing their asses off, but definitely exhaustion wasn't the reason why Shelby noticed Santana wasn't doing alright that day.

They sat on the turned-on boudoirs and the director of the musical held the girl's hand. "I couldn't have picked a better actress for this play, but you are not that good." Her words weren't rough at all. Neither these nor the ones she professed to Jesse one minute ago. That was Shelby Corcoran. Tough love all the time. And even more after three years of parenting the offspring of the Queen of the Seven Hells (who was an angel, though. The girl, Beth, I mean. The other one was a true-nature bitch. The little one just had that latent gene) and more than half a year surrounded by fresh-graduated Glee kids. 'Glee kids' equals 'kids with the emotional stability of a one-legged eighty-year-old woman crossing the tightrope but without the emotional part.' Yes, not my best analogy. Leave me alone.

"It's okay," Santana lied with the fakest chuckle in the history of trying to hide shit.

Shelby smiled fondly, squeezing the girl's hand a little bit tighter. "For seven months you have given me your absolute best. You are devoted, professional and somehow manage Jesse better than I've done since I met him."

"It's easier than it looks like." Santana laughed coyly, and her eyes started getting wetter than she would have liked them to.

"You have your days down." She was referring to those random and unannounced escapes to Lima and her hangovers. "But you have never been like this for two entire days." And by 'like this' she meant that she was executing the number flawlessly and playing all the emotions demanded by the role, but without faking her own. "Something's wrong with you. You are my mentee and fixing your off-stage problems is my duty as much as taking care of the messes you do on."

Santana lowered her head, letting her hair cover her face. "Never had a mentor before." She chuckled as a tear fell on her left knee.

"And that's why you cry?" Shelby chuckled back.

"Well… let's say I've always been a self-made girl." And that in high school Quinn was always Coach Sylvester's favorite. She and Schuester never got precisely along. And… well… it felt so good to have someone to look up to for once and that that someone really cared about you.

Shelby held Santana's hand at the same time as she cupped the girl's wet face to make her look back into her eyes. "Listen to me. I'll say this to you as many times as you need it, but you have to listen to this very carefully: you are a strong, confident New York woman. You are fierce, fearless and called to be a star."

At those words, Santana broke down, but her mentor went on. "Nobody ever told you this? Then it's my pleasure to be the first one. Santana, you can't keep doing this to yourself. You can't keep holding on to a life that has been over for the last seven months! It's insane! It wouldn't be wrong if you had nothing else, but…" she dried a couple tears off Santana's face with her thumb. "It's not your case."

"It's so easy to say it…" the Lima Heights diva replied weakly. "But moving on is hard to do."

"It's not easy, yes, but the thing here is that you have already moved on, and now you are realizing it. You're realizing that this is what it is now. What you are. The new you." And that she didn't need everything left behind in Lima. "It's noble that you want to fight for her. But at what cost?"

The girl kept shedding one tear after the other. She wasn't sobbing or panting. It was just water flowing out of her eyes as she gave it a second, a third and a fourth thought all at the same time to the idea of letting go of something that demanded too much energy to drag along in her growth.

That was it. Santana Lopez was growing. And high-heel shoes were not what made her a woman that day. For once, the woman was inside, managing to get over her past and her past self.

"Chin up, head high and fight the war you were born to win, Santana."

* * *

"Are you freaking kidding me?!" Sue Sylvester's rebuff was clearly heard by the whole student body that afternoon.

The people were heading to their classes after lunch when a trolley crashed into the lockers once the maybe coach of the year but definitely not mother of the year let it go when she saw who was walking down the hallways of the high school. Again. Actually, two 'again' or a 'seriously?' would be a little more accurate.

A barely 5'3" young brunette, 5'5" on a pair of high-heels that I mentioned not so long ago. Wavy hair, left-sided bangs and too much mascara that matched the black mini-skirt and deep v-neck loose blouse she was wearing. And what dragged the most attention was the absence of animals or any other motives on her clothes.

"What the hell are you doing here?!" Sue turned around to walk towards Rachel Berry with a raging finger about to be shot into the girl's forehead. To be noticed: the trolley got taken care of by a bunch of Cheerios wandering up and down the school. This time the baby didn't suffer any harm.

* * *

Figgins' office. The principal of the William McKinley High School, from behind his desk, stares at a made-over Rachel Berry sitting next to Sue Sylvester. The prey seems relaxed, confident though the tracksuited panther has clenched her paws around the arms of the chair, ready to prove who the king of the jungle is. And do not say that a panther cannot be the king of the jungle. Feudalism died a long time ago and Game of Thrones is on HBO, not here.

The fact here is that Will Schuester came into the office. "What now, Sue?" he asked, rolling his eyes. He was more than used to those periodical Sue's absurd meetings with Figgins. He was so tired of the coach's leisure time pain-in-the-assing that he didn't even notice to whom belonged the other head sitting opposite to the principal. "Oh," he added after he recognized his alum.

Figgins nodded. "That's why I called you in, William. Are you sure this young lady is who she claims to be?" he said without taking his eyes off of Rachel. He really couldn't believe that that young woman was Rachel Barbra Berry, the one with a repertoire the same size of the embarrassment her closet could create in a five-year-old girl.

"H-Hard to believe it, but… yeah. It's Rachel." Will kept on frowning, trying to assume Rachel's new look and wondering what she was doing there.

The diva waved her long hair in return, keeping her confidence intact and smiling widely.

"This is completely unacceptable!" And then there was Sue's outburst. "I've put up with the Glee Club for four years. Four entire years. I have tried to destroy you, let you be, helped you… everything! And when the only apparent way to be free of watching and hearing and suffering your goddamn songs every single day is to let natural selection take care, you always keep coming back." She held up her usual finger, aiming at Will's face as she stood up. "I will not allow this. Not anymore. You are going down, no matter how many unbearable misfits you keep bringing back to pollute the environment of this teaching institution."

She started pressing her finger against her co-worker's forehead, even though it slipped down to his nose because of the alleged butter in Will's hair. "I don't care how many ulcers it's going to cost me, if the last thing I do is get this herculean task to end: graduation is going to be a one-way rite of passage, as it is supposed to be!" She made a face once her finger finally stopped on the tip of Will's nose. "You are as gross as the unceasing repetition of your setlist."

And finally she left the room. No Carmina Burana. No O'Fortuna. Maternity did leave her a little bit exhausted, even for her operistic-destroyer storm-outs.

"She is lowering her level," Rachel pointed out with a chuckle.

After Figgins gestured for her and Will to go out and resume whatever they were doing, both teacher and former-student-that-believed-she-was-better-than-t he-teacher left the office headed to the choir room.

"Did they call you to help us? They are not feeling quite sure about us winning this year," Will said, fearing a Glee conspiracy led by 11 kids claiming his head on a silver platter and the artistic control of the choir.

Rachel could only do but chuckle again. "No, though that suspicion is totally justified if you haven't made any stellar addition since the last time I was here. But let me explain the circumstances of my comeback to all of you together. I have solos to sing and saliva to save." She quickened her pace, making her heels announce her arrival.

And it wasn't a regular arrival. Actually, as if anything Rachel did was regular. Anyway, some eye-witnesses testify that it happened in slow motion, with her hair moving from left to right like in a shampoo advertisement, surrounded by a halo of light and sex. Well, that was basically Jacob's version, who collapsed at the sight of his muse. Whatever happened inside his pants that moment will remain a secret until the end of times. For all of our sakes.

The other things said went from the straight male sector's "who's that?" to "always the same one? Can't they bring a cute one?" by Sebastian, passing through Sugar's "oh, God, her mom has taught her how to dress on her own" and Blaine's epic eyebrow-raising.

"Yep. I am back." Rachel's words sank down little by little in the group. "Long story short: Finn and I broke up, I obviously can't stay in the same city as he is…"

"How tall is he now?" Brittany asked Sugar privately as she frowned.

"…so I'm back in Lima until he finishes Shelby's play, then I'll go to NY in September for my NYADA classes and roam the path of success as planned. In the meantime, since I didn't pull back my tuition of the Spanish course I was supposed to take…"

"…the last time you were here," Tina finished her role model's sentence with a little bit of spotlight-stolen grudge.

Rachel smiled kindly, not noticing that it was a poisoned dart to make her know she wasn't welcome. "So I'm here to help you out with Nationals, prom, the graduation… and all the makeovers you need because, as you can see, I am a new, renewed woman who is not attached to her past anymore and who looks hot as hell."

"And that's why you come to your hometown every single time you have nowhere else to go. 100% logic." Artie's words were as hurtful as true. "Though I'm totally okay with the makeover part. Bouncy. You go, girl."

"And before you start wondering about the reason of my break-up with Finn… How to say it? He's been having eyes for other girls when I am the only one who belongs to his mind, unlike any blonde bitch with even less ability to move on with her life than me myself. And no, it's not a self-insult. It's just that I'm the perfect example for everything."

Rachel's ego display that day was something even more excessive than usual. And after all those years, the walls of the choir room had the total right to say that the girl was overcoming herself.

"And which is my solo now?"

* * *

"Don't panic. Don't panic. Do not panic." Those were Rachel's words after she survived one of the harshest comebacks she had ever made. That's the main reason why I'm skipping it, because the threats, the cursing and the explicit violence and harm done to the high school material is too hard to be included in this story and some of you might have just had lunch or something, so… I'll leave it there. You're welcome. To whom she was saying those words? To the Blaine and the Tina she took to the janitor's closet after the rehearsal was over.

"Not a fan of this place," Blaine said as he tried to pull a mop away from his head. If only Santana could have been there to see how that mop was taller than Blaine… what an epic string of Eskimos jokes we've missed. "Explanation. Now. Please."

Tina rolled her eyes. "Next secret meeting in the girl's bathroom for this one to feel home. Berry, come on, spit it out, almost two hours of you playing the center-of-the-world card is too much," she urged as she folded her arms.

"Even I am worn off," Rachel replied with a sigh. "I need you to help us with something. I didn't tell you about this earlier because I wanted it to be the most verisimilar possible. Me and Finn are totally okay, didn't break up, and none of the stuff I've said is true. Except for that I'm here to help you out with everything you need."

"Cut the crap," Tina enquired. "What the hell is going on and why are you dressed as if you would have been haunting sausages last night?"

"Last night, after Blaine and I talked," Rachel started explaining after she held the boy's hand, "I realized that I couldn't spend my whole life waiting for Quinn to make a move and destroy my life. So I destroyed it first." She was grinning.

Blaine opened his eyes widely. "So if she thinks you have nothing else to lose…"

"She can't take anything away from you," Tina finished Blaine's reflection. "And you came up with this by yourself?!"

"I live with a conniving bitch level Santana Lopez, Kurt's a brainiac and… Finn is always by my side." Rumor has it that Brittany's contribution to the plan could have been way bigger than Finn's, but that's another issue.

After a brief moment of silence during which the three of them thought about the plan, Tina had to ask: "the question is: what now?"

Rachel let a small grin full of faith and self-confidence draw on her face. "Just be cool and play along. This is our most important test of all."

"But I still don't get why you are dressed like a whore. Though the change has definitely done you good," Tina kept trying to clear her doubts away.

"I had to make sure that Jacob posted this everywhere."


	16. Sweet merciful mother of proms

**16. Sweet merciful mother of proms**

Brittany S. Pierce found herself in a white Cheerio outfit. She had bleached the red parts of her old uniform and wore it with a pair of white high heels and a ponytail.

The event had just started. People were arriving little by little, freaking out at the decorations of the gymnasium. Half the floor was covered with a thick layer of ice and dozens of pairs of rollerskates were hanging from the ceiling.

The stage was a huge cage hanging ten feet off the ground under a ten-feet-tall pile of baffles, most of them broken. A massive statue of a cat holding an egg in its gullet was presiding over the center of the venue.

Instead of drinks and food, there was only candy from the past three Halloweens and lots of Christmas lightings.

On the walls, ten flat-screen TVs. The broadcasting went from a totally logic Britney Spears videoclip collection to the cooking channel, passing through a porn, Ellen's greatest hits and a PowerPoint presentation of the ugliest babies in History. If that's not enough for you and you are yearning to know what was on the other five TVs: a 5-minute extract of a documentary on natural birth on constant replay, reruns of a TV series about a show choir director's absurd presence in a show choir class, a top ten K-pop songs with subtitles in Swedish, a picture of Brittany herself and a test card.

But besides all of that and the chicken and the hen running freely… it was a totally average prom.

"I don't know what to say," Blaine said with a chuckle as he approached his date.

Brittany wrapped the carnation corsage, as promised, around Blaine's wrist. She fixed his red bowtie, making the little boy look the sharpest among the rest of the student body, whose conception of 'absurd prom' made them confused about what it's absurd and what's a costume party. My point here: Blaine, a suit, handsome as hell, enough to bring Brittany back from the Santana side. "I'd say that if you were wearing heels as well, you might have stood a chance with me tonight, but I can't be with someone shorter than me. Sorry, cutie." But there are dreams that cannot be.

Blaine chuckled as Brittany left him standing there after tapping his face softly. He turned on his not-high heels and found Sebastian, just arriving at the prom in his Dalton uniform. Blaine frowned as he headed towards the tall boy. "What the…?"

Sebastian adjusted the knot of his tie and chuckled at Blaine's confusion. "I heard about the stage-cage and thought: hey, wouldn't it be fun to watch a 6'2" warbler in a cage?" He laughed as they went to take a seat on the grandstands.

"Not fun, man! This choir has a long story of betrayals days before a competition." Blaine laughed along anyway. "Where's your date though?"

Sebastian was then the one who frowned. "My what? Haven't used a date for proms in the last 18 years, won't start today. Not all of us are as old-fashioned as you are, my little Blaine. By the way, who's yours today? Berry? Marley? Tina? You and she have been very close lately. Or is it me and I haven't even found out yet?"

Blaine answered with a polite chuckle. "You wish."

"Yeah, I wish." Sebastian nodded absent-mindedly. The problem there is that little Blaine had actually pressed a button nobody knew about.

"You wish?" Blaine enquired, turning his head in absolute confusion.

Sebastian Smythe was not known for his display of emotions. At least deep emotions away from sex depravation. You know, that kind of emotions that come out into the light after a couple of beers. And by 'a couple of beers' I mean 'the required amount of alcohol needed to spend the night in a prom where no booze is allowed'. He stood up and headed out. "Gotta take a leak."

* * *

"God is forgiving, but you are testing him, Rachel, and I say this as a friend."

Those were Joe Hart's words when he passed by Rachel Berry. The girl was clad in the shortest dress ever. Micro-dress, it might have been referred to as. A tight black dress that left the 85% of her legs exposed and, combined with a push-up definitely made by a sorcerer, the 45% of her bosom. Her mane fell down her half-bare back as she walked into the gym and all the eyes turned to look at her. And the place was almost at full capacity, so that was a considerable amount of eyes wide open pointing at the made-over diva.

"Charlie," Rachel saluted Marley, who was standing by herself at the entrance of the gym in an appropriate pink and cream dress. Well, everything next to Berry's outfit was appropriate, that's for sure.

Marley turned to look at the woman she was called to succeed. "It's Marley, actually."

"A piece of advice: no one will use your name if you stand there all night long on your own. Blend in." Rachel took her hand and pulled the shy girl to the middle of the room. After she snapped her fingers in the air, one of the band boys hurried to bring her and Marley a pair of microphones; of course, the one covered with pink crystals had a name written all over it. "Blending in 101, Berry Style. Hit it!"

_[I'm so excited – The Pointer Sisters]_

"Just FYI, this only happens with me. Don't try it at home or you'll get disappointed as hell," Rachel warned Marley when the music started at her command, even though she clearly saw Tina telling the band boys which song to play and when to begin and Brittany had spent the last half an hour trying to deduce (out loud) a way to steal Rachel's spotlight.

_Rachel:  
Tonight's the night we're gonna make it happen.  
Tonight we'll put all other things aside.  
Give in this time and show me some affection.  
We're going for those pleasures in the night._

_Rachel with Brittany, Marley and Tina backing up:  
I want to love you, feel you,  
wrap myself around you.  
I want to squeeze you, please you.  
I just can't get enough.  
And if you move real slow I'll let it go._

_Rachel with Brittany, Marley and Tina:  
I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it._

_Rachel:  
I'm about to lose control and I think I like it._

_Rachel with Brittany, Marley and Tina:  
I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it.  
And I know, I know, I know, I know,  
I know I want you. _

_Brittany:  
We shouldn't even think about tomorrow._

_Tina:  
Sweet memories will last a long, long time._

_Marley:  
We'll have a good time baby, don't you worry._

_Rachel:  
And if we're still playing around, boy that's just fine._

_Rachel with Brittany, Marley and Tina:  
Let's get excited, (Tina: Oh!) we just can't hide it. (Brittany: No, no, no)_

_Rachel:  
I'm about to lose control and I think I like it._

_Rachel with Brittany, Marley and Tina:  
I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it. (Tina: No, no)  
I know, I know, I know, I know,_

_I know I want you, I want you._

Rachel started dancing around all the boys in the gym, especially around those who were… how to say it… occupied with someone present in the room or just finding about it later. Translation: screwing around Trouty Mouth as much as possible, but moving to Blaine from time to time so it wasn't too barefaced.

_Rachel with Brittany, Marley and Tina backing up:  
Oh boy, I want to love you, feel you,  
wrap myself around you.  
I want to squeeze you, please you.  
I just can't get enough.  
And if you move real slow I'll let it go._

_I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it. Oh!_  
_I'm about to lose control and I think I like it. (Marley: Oh yeah!)_  
_I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it. (Marley: No, no, no, no, no)_  
_I know, I know, I know, I know_  
_I know I want you, I want you._

_Rachel:  
I'm so excited. _

_Brittany, Marley and Tina:  
Do what you do to me._

_Rachel:  
I just can't hide it._

_Brittany, Marley and Tina:  
You've got me burning up._

_Rachel with Brittany, Marley and Tina backing up:  
I'm about to lose control and I think I like it. _

_Rachel:  
I'm so excited._

_Brittany, Marley and Tina:  
How did you get to me?_

_Rachel:  
I can't deny, no, no, no. _

_Brittany, Marley and Tina:  
I've got to give it up._

_Rachel:  
I know, I know I want you._

_I'm so excited._

_Brittany, Marley and Tina:  
Do what you do to me._

_Rachel:  
No, no, oh!_

_Brittany, Marley and Tina:  
You've got me burning up._

_Rachel:  
Burning up! _

_Rachel with Brittany, Marley and Tina backing up:  
Hey, hey!  
I think I like it. _

_Rachel:  
I'm so excited. _

_Brittany, Marley and Tina:  
How did you get to me?_

_Rachel:  
You got me. _

_Brittany, Marley and Tina:  
I've got to give it up._

_Rachel with Brittany, Marley and Tina backing up:  
I'm about to… oh, oh!  
I like it boy!_

"Okay, don't you think you are taking this a little bit too far?" Blaine asked Rachel at the bar as she tried to find a bottle of water to quench her thirst. "I mean, the whole… hooker in despair act?" He was concerned about Rachel losing control of the situation, not like he didn't enjoy it or anything like that.

Rachel smiled at her friend. "Trust me, I think so much mascara is giving me the scarlet eye and that my lady parts are going to spend the rest of the night sneezing because January in New York is way warmer than this prom and I swear to God I won't wear such a short thing like this in my entire life ever again."

Blaine couldn't help but chuckle in relief at Rachel's quick statement.

And Rachel could only answer to Blaine's chuckle with a fond smile now that they were almost the same height. Rachel ceased her attempts to find something to hydrate her stumbly tongue in that gym, so she turned to look at Blaine and hold his hands. "It's so cute of you that you to take care of me, but I have everything under control. Well, not everything. I'd appreciate it if you walked me to the ladies' room because I don't think I'll make it on my own riding these heels."

Blaine laughed louder than he should have, but he couldn't stop either after he offered Rachel his arm and started walking to the bathrooms and she began to explain to her friend her apocalyptic trip from the car to the building and the three times she had fallen to the ground.

* * *

Sebastian Smythe found refuge in the cafeteria. He was totally by himself, lying on one of the tables as the booze made the walls spin around his always-alert eyes. The flask fell from his hand to the floor, spilling the remaining two drops of gin onto the floor. He was there, half dead, staring at the high ceiling as the music echoed weakly from the gym through the hallways.

Hallways roamed by some students, among who was Sam Evans, who saw by chance Sebastian's still body. He walked in, smelling in case Sebastian was actually dead. But, to his comfort, his nose found the odor of alcohol instead of putrefaction. "Dude, you alright?" he asked as he approached the table.

Sebastian turned his head to look at Sam with red eyes. "What are you doing here? Isn't there a prom you're supposed to be attending or singing at or whatever?" His voice was broken, tired, drunk as hell.

"My date hasn't arrived yet."

"Who's the lucky one?"

"Quinn."

The tall boy burst into laughter. Laughter that gave him the strength to sit up. "Seriously? God, I gotta see that."

"Who are you with tonight?" Sam asked, trying to avoid the fact that he was scared as fuck of the more than possible face-off between his date and an out-of-control Rachel Berry. Actually, he kind of enjoyed Rachel's performance.

Sebastian rolled his eyes as he put his feet on the bench and rested his head on his hands. "This is not India, man. I don't need to be married to prove my value."

"I'm not sure that happens in India."

"Me neither, but I don't give a fuck," he answered sourly as he stood and headed out the door.

Sam turned on his heels after the fleeing boy. "What's wrong with you, man?" Sam and Sebastian had never had the strongest of the bonds. Actually, they had rarely interacted throughout the year, but somehow, being seniors so close to graduate brought them together. "Eyes have we. See you to the dark side spiraling we can." And that lack of mutual knowledge led Sam to think that everybody loved a Yoda impression.

"Looks like your eyes match your sense of humor. Three perfectly-shaped craps."

"Maybe. But that smell of envy you've been sweating since Rachel's back reeks way stronger than any crap in the world," the blond replied. Sebastian's words didn't hurt him, that phrase was born out of concern. Sam Evans was a good guy. A loyal friend, a loyal lover. Always the one being dumped. Always the one staying by everybody's side.

Sebastian stopped, took a deep breath and he resumed his exit, resorting to all reserves of self-control available in his body, mind and alleged soul.

"You love him. And this shit happens. It's okay." Sam smiled and chuckled softly, following Sebastian.

"It's okay until it's not." Sebastian stopped once again, this time already gripping the bar of the door, but somehow not pushing it open.

"I've been there."

"No, you haven't."

"What do you know?"

"I could say the same about you. What the fuck do you know about me?"

"Having spent the whole year avoiding to get involved with us doesn't mean that you were invisible. Every time Blaine came back from a weekend in New York. Every time the Rachel issue came up. Every time he sang to anybody that wasn't you… And he does sing a lot, dude." Sam rested his shoulder against the door, finally getting to see Sebastian's wet eyes after having the whole conversation with the other boy's back turned on him. "And when you have a feeling like that rotting inside of you for so long… every single person in the room and in the country knows."

Sebastian hit the door with his head and pressed his forehead against it as hard as he could while a tear fell down his face. "Not every single person."

"And that person is the first one that should know." Sam finished Sebastian's assertion.

After a pause, a couple seconds in silence with Sam staring at his maybe-friend supportively, Sebastian eventually broke the silence. "I'm not like you guys. I don't sing my shit out and act like three minutes of music can heal my heart and that crap of your motivational banners."

"It's not healthy to hold it in either."

"What do you suggest then, Trouty?" Sebastian turned his teary eyes at Sam with a playful chuckle. "Become a stripper and focus on my career? Don't say yes because you know I'd outstage you in the club too."

Sam chuckled back. "You either move on or you keep battling for him. But letting it consume you… At what cost are you willing to keep doing this to you?"

Sebastian finally opened the door and walked out. "This is why I don't discuss my issues with anyone. You always end up telling me the same clichés."

Sam smiled proud of himself as Sebastian headed back to the gym. "Might be clichés, but they always work and they are always true."

"If you thought for a second that I am, right now, in this exact moment, on my way to win him back or whatever you were talking about, you are not doing any favor to the blond collective," Sebastian replied without even turning to the other boy.

"Then where are you going?" He was truly hoping that Sebastian would do some serenade plus declaration move. But…

"Puckerman's coming. No way he has no hooch with him."

…not everybody lives in the same gleeful fantasy world.


	17. An unrighteous kiss

**This chapter is another personal fave of mine. One scene and as crazy as can be. Have a good laugh :)**

* * *

**17. An unrighteous kiss**

Kurt Hummel had adopted this routine every single day after his classes in NYADA, if the dramas of his friends allowed it: two bags of popcorn, a bottle of Coke and a movie, a romantic one if possible.

The purpose of his daily watching was mainly to fill that existential emptiness he had been dealing with since his break-up with Blaine. And a hole the size of the 5'8" cute-as-hell ex-Warbler was only survivable through insane amounts of unhealthy pity food. But this is Kurt Hummel, and he refused to be a chocolate ice-creamed flamboyant topic.

That Wednesday, after a destroyer class with Mrs. Cassandra July herself, it was the turn of 500 Days of Summer. Somehow, identifying himself with the movie characters was the only thing keeping his heart from getting numb. Yes, Kurt Hummel was afraid that he wasn't going to be able to fall in love again. Almost a year had passed since they were not together anymore and he hadn't felt anything close to that.

Santana came home in the middle of the film, when she found a Kurt in tears singing 'You Make My Dreams' along with the movie. She dropped her bag on the floor and gave her roommate the most judgmental look ever. And we are talking about Santana Lopez here, the one A-class bitch with the sharpest gaydar in the History of Gayness. According to herself, a mandatory course of NYADA in sophomore year. "You. Are. Pathetic." She unplugged the TV and realized that Kurt was watching the movie with all the lights off. "And please turn the lamp on because I have had a couple drinks and I am in no condition to walk around the house in the dark."

The boy complied, and scooched over to make room on the couch for his friend. "You call me pathetic but you smell like a distillery. Absolutely logic," Kurt replied, kind of hurt. Kurt's hurt. Funny.

Santana made it to the couch, almost stumbling on with the toaster that, inexplicably, was on the floor of the living room, but that's something out of our concern limit right now. "You calling me an alcoholic, biatch?" She was trying to get all Lima Heights, but couldn't avoid bursting into laughter. "Okay, you might be kind of right." She ended up shifting into a ball of bitch with her head on Kurt's lap, looking at the boy with bright eyes. "Braid my hair, sweetheart." She had definitely a distillery inside of her.

Kurt Hummel had embraced sobriety. Not a drop of alcohol since his New Year's resolutions. He had learned for every single friend of his that heartache and booze are not a safe cocktail. Drunken Berry, your memory is still present in all of our minds. "You know you hit rock bottom, right?" He didn't refuse to braid Santana's hair on his knees though. It's kind of comforting that some people are still faithful to their sexualities in this story.

"Let's not talk about me. Let's talk about you," she said as she pinched Kurt's nose and twisted it. "God, you're so bright. Seriously, if you weren't that gay you could be Jon Snow's stunt."

Kurt frowned. "What the heck does that have to do with being gay?"

"That the direwolf might spend the whole shooting licking your cotton candy balls."

"You don't believe gay men's testicles are made out of cotton candy, right?"

"Maybe, but your hiding a stash of lip gloss in your groin is something I have no doubt of. Anyhow, you should show me your nuts. It's been two months since my last encounter with a penis and I'm afraid of Berry giving me her Death Touch and turning me back to straight and I am out of shape."

Kurt's eyes got wide open. "First of all: are you really asking me to see my… stuff? And second of all and most important: if you slept with Sebastian last year, how is it possible that you saw a junk two months ago?"

Santana smirked devilishly. "Let's say that I might have an idea of why you are so fond of Frodo." She laughed again. "Frodo and Jon Snow. That'd be epic."

Kurt literally pushed Santana off the couch onto the floor. "You what with Blaine?!" he asked in the highest of his pitches.

The girl's fall got cushioned by her blood alcohol content, even though she hit the toaster with her right knee. She tried to stand up, but she thanked the cold feeling of the hardwood against her drunk-blushed face. "Yes, Kurt, I am stupid and I have fucked Blaine because the situation here next year won't be complicated enough," Santana replied sarcastically, barely vocalizing. "Are you out of your mind?!"

Kurt, relieved, took a deep breath and lay down on the couch, leaving Santana on the floor. "You scared the shit out of me, bitch!" He slapped Santana's bubbly ass. "But you said you saw Blaine's… thing?"

"How many years was it your diet? You shouldn't call it 'thing'. Something I learnt from my manizer days is that they have feelings too. Yes, it's not fair that there are womanizers but no manizers. And as the pioneer of the English vocabulary I am, I hereby say that I was a manizer." She frowned at herself, realizing that she got off topic once again. "As I was saying, from now own it will be referred to as Frodo's Ringholder. All in favor?" She raised her hand. "Approved. What were you saying?"

"Why did you see… Blaine's… Ringholder?" It was hard for Kurt to say those words. "I prefer penis."

"Of course you prefer penis, you are gay, that's how it works. Duh."

He was absolutely mesmerized by how wasted Santana was. "You were trying to tell me when, why, where and how you saw Blaine's stuff."

"Oh, right, that." She nodded, still in the same position. "Would you be mad if I had caught him out of the shower with just a towel from the waist down one of the last times he came to Berry's?"

"Well, no, you spend the day wandering up and down Rachel and Finn's as if it was your own house." Kurt shrugged.

"Would you be mad if I had literally pulled the towel off to see if he actually had the aforementioned cotton candy balls or even a Toblerone down there? Because I needed to know what the hell makes you, Rachel, he-me, the new Berry-wannabe and half of the sexually-confused world community so fucking obsessed with him."

Kurt's astonishment was shooting through the NY night right then, trying not to crash into any skyscraper lightning rod. "You did that?! And what did he say?!"

Santana chuckled at the memory. "He looked at me with freaked-out eyes. Like when you think someone is proposing to you. Actually, that's how all pornos start off their second acts. But no, a thing I'm pretty sure of is that I won't have between my legs a boy whose feet are almost covered when he wraps a towel around his waist." She made a brief pause. "And I still don't know what the fuck you guys see in him."

"He is… Blaine." Kurt needed no more reason. He was Blaine. The one and only love of his life.

"Were you seriously thinking that I could have fucked him?!" Santana was outraged. The outrage of the girl lying on her stomach and shaking her legs in the air with only one heel on. Something totally lack of respectability. But the indignation gave her the strength to flip over and look into Kurt's eyes. "Honesty hour? I don't think the flag would have risen even if he had had a chance with the goddess sent by the Heavens I am." And then, the most unexpected thing happened for Kurt's bewilderment to hit the ceiling. Santana flashed a boob at him. "You see?" the Lima Heights diva despite Kurt's awe. "You can't get a boner without a bone. And God provides these two don't become bones throughout the years," she stated as she groped her bosom.

The only plausible answer for Kurt that moment was to remain silent, totally wordless.

Santana sat up, with all her attributes back into her bra. "Please don't say that you liked it. You cannot go back to the closet. You just cannot. I forbid you to!" In fact, she stood up like a bolt, looking at Kurt with fear in her eyes.

"I… I…" Kurt's brains shut off. Maybe because he was totally mindfucked by Santana's licentiousness. Maybe just as a defense mechanism.

She pulled Kurt up by his armpits, almost stumbling down and falling backwards. "God, you're heavier than you seem," she said once they were standing face to face.

"I've been working out."

"Fuck off, the only thing you've been doing is gorging on popcorn like a damn famished cow of those McDonald's farms." She was kind of right, if not totally right, but thankfully Cassandra July made him burn the calories. By dancing. "Anyway, my point here is this: we cannot afford another debacle, so we're dealing with this in the intimacy of our home sweet home."

After that absurd declaration of intentions, Santana pressed her lips against Kurt's, right before the boy backed off. "What the hell, Santana?!" Back to his glass-buster voice pitch.

"Tell me you don't like that before I french you. Because I'm totally up for going all Lima Heights down your throat, Hummel!"

Kurt finally lost it. "I don't like you, Santana! I don't like girls! I am gay! Capital gay! Gaydars are calibrated in relation to me! Straight, bi-curious, swishy, closeted, gay, Kurt Hummel! And keep that tongue away from me!"

After half a minute standing on opposite sides of the living room with a toaster in the middle of them, they burst into laughter for ten minutes. They literally spent ten minutes just laughing out loud until their neighbors upstairs started hitting the floor. Old people and their habits of going to bed offensively early.

Anyhow, that was all. Kurt and Santana lying tangled on their couch, catching their breaths after that bizarre moment. "Who's he-me?" Kurt asked with a soft chuckle, trying his best not to go back to the laughter episode.

"Sebastian," Santana replied, kind of sobered up. "But… we were talking about you."

"About me?"

"About you watching rom-coms every day because that's the closest you've been to a relation in the last year."

Boom. Without anesthesia.

"I…"

"Say it."

"Say what?"

"Say it, Kurt. The fact that you don't say it out loud doesn't make it any less real."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Little shiny liar.

Santana beat her previous record of most judgmental look ever. "You know it. And you know you act out of pride when you'd rather hide your feelings from all of us instead of facing the truth."

Kurt took a deep breath. He was Kurt Hummel. And everybody remembered him back in Lima as one of the bravest kids that walked down the hallways of the William McKinley High School. And that moment he realized that he wasn't being fair either to all those inspired by his glory days or to himself. "It's not pride, Santana," he replied quietly.

Santana, in return, held her friend's hand and squeezed it tightly. "Yes, Kurt, it's pride when you have to face the truth, that all your hopes are on something that is not going to happen. Because you can't go to fight anymore. And neither can I."

The boy broke down. He let all the tears he was saving for 500 Days of Summer flow out. "Then if you understand it, why do you want me to say that I'm in love with the man that is not going to love me back?"

Santana rested her head on Kurt's shoulder. "Because when you lie to me saying that you don't think of Blaine to sleep every single night I believe you for a second. And during that second I feel lonelier than I can stand." Her voice was soft and calm. "Kurt, you love him. And I hate watching you lie for a cause that you can't win."

"You don't know that," he replied sourly through the tears.

"I love you. You do know that. And when I tell you that you and Blaine are not going to happen it's not because I want to hurt you, it is because you don't deserve to be clinging on to a fantasy that's been dead for ten damn months. You deserve a true, real love."

Kurt cupped Santana's face. "And I love you too, and when I tell you that you are not always right it's because I don't want you to think that you're foolproof."

Santana shook her head. "Kurt, you're not seeing my poi…"

Kurt stood up from the couch, drying the tears off his eyes and his face. "No, you are not seeing my point. I had a true, real love. And I'm not clinging on to a fantasy. I'm clinging on to something I've already had. We're not talking impossible here. We're talking things that can happen again." He headed to his room. "And deep in my heart, Santana Lopez, believe it or not, Blaine Anderson and I are going to happen. Don't know when. Don't know where. Don't know how but I do know why. Because we had a true, real love. And I can't be the only one that sees it."


	18. Enter the bitch

**18. Enter the bitch**

"Here we go again," Quinn Fabray voice-overed in her head as she entered the William McKinley High School. "I have to admit that I was a bit nervous about tonight. You never know where you are wanted and where you are not until you arrive at the party."

Clad in a strapless white dress, her matching white heels echoed along the halls. Most of the attending student body recognized the former head Cheerio as she granted them kind and warm smiles while looking for her date at a prom she wasn't expected.

"It's been one year since I stood out of the wheelchair. The pity eyes are over, but some excessively merciful looks are still remain. Which might be good for the cause. A cause that you should know is not the absolute destruction of certain people."

Becky Jackson, who was walking by her date's arm, high-fived her once friend as they passed by each other. "You go, girl," the girl said while winking an eye at Fabray.

"So nice to see that my image hasn't been as polluted as I thought it would be after… my dear friend's comeback. It looks like I won't have to do that speech on how my whole life doesn't revolve around trying to bring Rachel Berry down and that I wasn't born from the Seed of Evil. I am not a bad person. I do have a condition. I have made amends with it. I am trying to get my life together on a new road, and I am happy to be having a date with a long lost… special friend." Even in Quinn's head, 'love' was a word too big to be written all over the boy who was waiting for her by her locker.

Sam Evans was standing in a nice suit, with a thornless red rose in his hand. As Quinn reached him, she got planted a kiss on her perfect cheek. "You look… bow chicka wow wow."

Both of them chuckled as Quinn played coyly with her loose hair. "You look pretty sharp yourself, handsome," she replied.

"Tonight is not about myself. Tonight has no special meaning. I know that when everybody sees me they'll think this is part of some kind of master plan, but I am just a girl who loves proms asked out by a dateless ex boyfriend with an obvious crush on her yet." She stopped her voice-over for a second and turned her head to look at Sam as they walked to the gymnasium holding hands. "And that sounded incredibly manipulative and awful. But if my therapist says that I have to be honest, Quinn Fabray will be honest. And I truly hope that Sam doesn't love me. I don't want to hurt his feelings. Because I know how that feels."

"What do you think?" Sam asked Quinn once they arrived. Even though she thought for a moment that he was referring to what she was actually saying to herself in her head, Quinn finally realized that Sam was asking for her opinion on the weirdest prom ever.

She tried to find the words, but the absurd theme left her totally speechless, which might or might not be its prime intention. "It's… very… Very." She decided to go with a polite nod and smile, mostly because she could imagine that Sam might have had offered Brittany a hand with the work.

"Well, well, well. Who do we have here? If it's the one and only Quinn Fabray, hair and flesh honoring us with her presence." Sue Sylvester approached the blond couple, carrying her baby in what looked like a backpack. "I thought you were not part of the As-If-I-Never-Graduated, but I see you all Glee kids have it in your loser blood. You disappoint me, Q. You disappoint me."

"Glad to see you too, Coach," Quinn replied with her usual polite perfect smile as she turned on her heels to walk away from the incorrigible Sue Sylvester.

The funny thing is that what she found when she turned around was another even more unpleasant surprise. "I thought you were better than her, Q." Those were Sue's last words and chuckle before she walked out of the gym, judging the crap out of every single shamelessly-dressed student or alumnus in her way.

Quinn rolled her eyes at Rachel before approaching her and Blaine, who were just right back from the bathroom. "So I guess the rumors are true. You finally made it. Congrats. Or sorry. I don't know what to say in this case," the blonde said to Blaine with a hand on his shoulder and a devilish grin on her own face. "You look nice yourself too, Rachel. Nothing like a fake break-up to get dressed like the slut you always wanted to be but your hideous personality never allowed. Now, if you excuse me, I have a real date and a real prom to attend. Maybe one with a queen who won't win the crown out of pity."

The bitch returned to Sam and the two of them headed to look for some drinks. A task interrupted by Rachel's reply, "who says I'm not bringing a real date, Lucy?"

"Your nose, that slap I gave you two years ago and the rerun I'm dying to do of it," Quinn said in a loud tone, without even looking over her shoulder to say it to Rachel's face.

Once the midget couple was on their own, they tried to calm down, concretely the girl. "Okay, deep breaths. Deep breaths." So she did, but not for too long. "How the hell did she find out?!" Rachel asked Blaine, squeezing the boy's forearms in absolute distress.

* * *

"Don't you think you were a little bit harsh on Rachel?" Sam asked Quinn as he handed his date a red solo cup, but this time without serenading the container, thankfully. "And… what was that about the fake break-up?"

Quinn swallowed the unknown beverage in one go, not even thinking about what she was drinking at all. "She just… she just gets on my nerves. I swear I don't want any troubles tonight." She turned to look Sam in the eye before she planted a sweet kiss on his trouty lips. "Tonight is about you and me, my king."

"I love you," Sam replied right after they unlocked lips.

And then the weirdest chain of gossip took place: Artie overheard the eight letters and rolled to tell Tina.

Tina, senior head bitch of rumors spread the word throughout the whole gym.

Obviously, Sugar, junior bitch of rumors doubled the efforts.

Rory translated it into his language.

A rumor that comes out of Joe's mouth is believed to automatically become the Word of God.

And so on until it reached Sebastian's ears from Marley's mouth. "And why am I supposed to give a fuck?" he asked the girl while they were sitting on the floor against the lockers. "In fact, why do you?"

Marley, moving her feet as she looked at them cutely. "I thought you two were friends."

"Still, I don't care if he proposes tonight." Sebastian eyerolled as he hit the back of his head against the lockers after he tried to sip an inexistent last drop from a totally dry tequila bottle. "And you shouldn't either. In fact…" He frowned. "Why are you here with me again?"

The so-perfect Marley Rose turned to the drunken former Warbler-dressed Warbler and spoke slowly. "I… can I ask you something?"

"Surprise me."

"How is it possible that he has already forgotten us?"

Sebastian stood up, almost tumbling down on his way. "Seriously, you have to stop giving fucks. And stop thinking. And more importantly," he said before he looked back into Marley's sweet eyes, "stop caring for someone that doesn't care for you."

"You are a terrible liar." Marley wasn't mad. She didn't sound angry at all. She chuckled lightly at Sebastian's false impassiveness. "And I don't want to stop caring. I just want you to answer me."

"Why do you keep thinking of Blaine?"

"Why don't you answer me when you think of him as much as I do?"

"Since when do you have a say on what's on my mind?"

"Since when cannot you answer one simple question?"

"If it's that simple, why don't you already have the answer?"

"Because I don't know why it is so easy for him to get over us."

"Me neither," Sebastian made the final statement with a wink and a grin of superiority trying to disguise that stirring the pot of crap inside his chest was killing him in that moment. "I am done going over and over this thing."

The girl stood up. "The reason I told you about Sam and Quinn is that last week I was talking to Sam about how we hadn't moved on. That he was still in love with Quinn." She smiled as she approached Sebastian and got on her tiptoes to whisper into the boy's ear. "Don't you see it gets better when you expect less?"

* * *

Back in the gymnasium, forming a circle, Rachel and Tina stood. A circle of two? You'll say. Nope: and Artie, but he wasn't standing and I feel like a super shitty narrator when I think that including him in the 'stood' is bad taste. Anyhow, the three of them in a circle, talking. That's all you need to know. They were looking at the stage, where Blaine and Brittany were getting ready for their duet.

"Where's that mythological date of yours, Berry?" Artie asked the short-of-clothing girl.

Rachel was checking her phone nervously every two minutes. "He's coming." Last message: twelve minutes ago.

"I'm starting to think you're making it up," he replied.

"You realize that she doesn't need to make a guy up? I mean, if she walked out in the street right now in these looks she'd have a billion men, and more than half would be willing to pay actual money," Tina intervened.

"Did you just call me a hooker?" Rachel asked while frowning, but not looking away from the screen of her phone.

"Just sticking to the facts and to the fact that I can see the band of your pants."

_[Stay – Rihanna ft. Mikky Eko]_

The piano started playing with Brittany and Blaine standing next to each other on the edge of the stage, behind two retro microphones. "This one's to the prom king and queen of last year: I finally made it. I have a vocally-inferior man backing me up in an unfairly split duet. I am the new Rachel!" Brittany said as she threw her fist into the air and pointed at the real Rachel.

Rachel chuckled. "Over my dead body," she replied with a fond smile back at Brittany, sure that the blonde couldn't hear her.

_Brittany:  
All along it was a fever.  
A cold sweat hot-headed believer.  
I threw my hands in the air I said show me something.  
She said: "if you dare come a little closer."_

Rachel finally made a call, but not to her date. "You should listen to this." And she pointed her phone at the stage with Santana's name on screen.

_Brittany:  
Round, and around, and around, and around we go.  
Oh now, tell me now, tell me now, tell me now you know._

_Not really sure how to feel about it._  
_Something in the way you move._  
_Makes me feel like I can't live without you._  
_It takes me all the way._  
_I want you to stay._

All across the country, in a tiny apartment in New York, Santana Lopez turned the speaker of her phone on as a tear ran down her face.

_Blaine:  
It's not much of a life you're living._

Kurt, who was in bed with his friend, held the girl's hand tightly as he heard his former man's voice.

_Blaine:  
It's not just something you take, it's given._

_Round, and around, and around, and around we go.  
Oh now, tell me now, tell me now, tell me now you know._

_Not really sure how to feel about it._  
_Something in the way you move._  
_Makes me feel like I can't live without you._  
_It takes me all the way._  
_I want you to stay._

And somehow, the distance between them felt smaller. Just as if Kurt and Santana were standing right behind their loved ones on the stage, mic in hand, clad in their senior prom outfits.

_Blaine and Brittany:  
Oh the reason I hold on.  
Oh 'cause I need this hole gone._

_Blaine, Brittany, Kurt and Santana:  
Funny you're the broken one  
but I'm the only one who needed saving._

As if the gymnasium was empty and only the two couples were dancing under two equally warm spotlights.

_Blaine, Brittany, Kurt and Santana:  
Cause when you never see the lights  
it's hard to know which one of us is caving._

_Santana:  
Not really sure how to feel about it._

As if she could touch the blonde's skin one last time.

_Brittany and Santana:  
Something in the way you move._

_Kurt:  
Makes me feel like I can't live without you._

As if he had a second chance to give him a proper goodbye.

_Blaine and Kurt:  
It takes me all the way._

_Kurt and Santana:  
I want you to stay._

But in the end, Blaine and Brittany were not the ones to hold. At least for them.

_Kurt and Santana:  
Stay._

Maybe because of the distance. Maybe because that dance was just a wide-awake fantasy of a delusional pair of fools in love.

_Blaine and Brittany:  
I want you to stay._

_Brittany:  
Oh._

"Thank you," Santana said on the phone, drying her crying off her face. "Everything alright there?"

"Everything alright," Rachel lied as she hung up. Why would Rachel hide the truth of Fabray's busting their little break-up scheme? Maybe because she wasn't the only one mesmerized by the performance she had just witnessed. Maybe because she wasn't the only one crying her eyes out. Maybe because she had Fabray eavesdropping on the conversation right from her back. These are not 'maybes' at all, just in case you needed me to clarify it. "Need something?" Rachel asked Quinn, pretty bummed out by the short space between them.

"Just saw you crying and wanted to check on you." She smiled fakely. "Everything alright?"

"Oh, yeah, everything alright?" The deep voice of Rachel's date asked from behind Quinn. "Looking good, by the way," Noah Puckerman went on as he kissed Rachel hello on her cheek. "You too," he told Quinn out of pure politeness.

And with all the expected-unexpected graduates that were there, the jaws being dropped to the floor and the hellos being exchanged, the prom had just started.


	19. Isn't it ironic?

**Get ready, because this chapter is one of the strongest of the whole fic. You might hate me for it. You might love it. Anyhow: here it goes.**

* * *

**19. Isn't it ironic?**

There is a moment at every prom when the gravity of the venue gathers around a group of people in the middle of the room. And if not, either your prom was pure garbage or the William McKinley High School is incredibly endogamous.

Anyway, here we are, in the center of the gymnasium, with Artie Abrams, Noah Puckerman, Quinn Fabray, Rachel Berry, Sam Evans and Tina Cohen-Chang surrounded by a halo of tension, hate, sexual tension, awkwardness and homicidal tension that could barely be stood.

As Blaine and Brittany joined them after their duet and the DJ (a.k.a. Jacob, the DJBI as he likes to be referred to as) began to play his hideous repertoire of gangsta rap and 00's greatest hits, things got a little bit passive-aggressive.

"Did I miss the coronation?" Puckerman asked as he wrapped his arm around his bro Sam's shoulders.

Oh… Sam's face… a perfect mixture of guilt, fear and self-embarrassment. Simply epic. But nothing compared to Quinn's though. The girl, standing next to him, had her eyes fixed on Rachel. Rachel looked back at her, perking an eyebrow and grinning widely in the purest Lima Heights style. "No, you didn't miss anything big, did he, Quinn?" the diva asked. "Did he, Sam?"

"Don't." That was Quinn's reply. A sour, short and simple negative answer. "Don't," she repeated, still ripping Rachel's skin off with her green eyes. "Leave him out of this."

"What's going on?" Puck asked, totally in the dark.

Rachel took Puck's hand and pulled him out of the circle. "Let's dance, okay?" But on their way to the dance floor, Rachel granted a few words into her nemesis' ear. "This is just a preview of what you'll feel when I take you down."

Puck and Rachel joined the rest of the people slow-dancing to Savage Garden's 'Truly Madly Deeply'. "So… what have you been up to lately, Puckerman?" Rachel asked, trying to leave behind the awkward moment with Quinn, even though that dance itself was meant to make things even more awkward.

"You are awful at small talk, you know that, right?" The boy chuckled.

She chuckled back, just feeling happy to be there, laughing next to an old friend. "I owe you a huge one for this, seriously. I really appreciate your showing up." Rachel Berry was probably dancing to her last minutes of being prom queen, but the fact that she was Noah Puckerman's date kind of took her back to her freshman year, when she would have done anything to share five words with him (or any popular breathing thing, actually).

The plans of Noah Puckerman himself for a Wednesday night were not precisely to attend a prom at his alma mater, but when someone tells you that the girl you're still in love with is about to get all [insert gayest-apocalyptic-Broadway-show-reference-ever here] in like no time, you tend to clear off your schedule for the month.

Anyhow, long-forgotten misfit feelings and new successful entrepreneurial lives aside, there they were, the Puckleberry, making the whole student body, alumni and staff of the William McKinley High School wonder if the flames had had been reborn from the ashes of an ancient super short hook-up thing. A two-times not-that-ancient super short hook-up thing according to Finn when he gets all insecure about Rachel's faithfulness.

"Can I ask you something?" Rachel continued after a minute of silent dancing. "Did you tell Quinn that my break-up with Finn is fake?"

Usually, someone would wait for a "sure" or a "shoot", but we are talking about Rachel Berry here, and that's not her style.

Puckerman just frowned. "No. I haven't talked to her since Brad's thing. Why do you ask?"

And Rachel, whose style was actually being all paranoid and suspicious as possible, saw the frown on her former crush's face and doubled it up. "Are you 100% sure?"

"Positive. Why, again?"

"She knows. And the only ones who knew about it were you, Finn, Santana, Kurt, Blaine and Tina. Unless someone heard us talking or on the phone or she has hacked my computer… I have no idea and I don't like it."

"Quinn tends to sort out her way to find stuff…" But Puck's reply got interrupted by a very painful feedback provoked by a microphone being scratched against the baffles.

"Hello, everyone," the very Quinn Fabray started speaking in the center of the gymnasium into that same microphone once she had everybody's attention. "My name is Quinn Fabray in case you don't know me. And this is a song I'd like to share with a good friend of mine, which I'm sure she'll enjoy singing with me due to… how very appropriate it is."

Rachel accepted the other microphone Quinn had in her hands, walking away from Puck as she tried to figure out why she was suddenly in an impromptu duet and what the motivation of the blonde's move was.

"Rachel Berry has been an inspiration to me during our high school years."

"Okay, she is officially bipolar and either is about to have a stroke or she's gonna shove that mic right up Rachel's…" Tina's comment at Quinn's words got shut by Blaine's hand, covering her mouth.

"Those who have known her are aware that she always gets everything she wants. Sometimes because she fights tooth and nail for it. Sometimes because she just takes it from other people." The funniest thing is that Quinn was giving her speech with the widest smile on her face and a voice tone totally fit for an award-winning introduction. In fact, her acting in that moment was totally Oscar-worthy. But that's another issue. "And, as you might have noticed, her date tonight is the guy she cheated on the alleged love of her life with two years ago, Noah Puckerman."

A spotlight shone on Puck, an always efficient work of the lighting crew. Always ready for a non-sense of the Glee offspring.

"I had a kid with this guy. We have had a beautiful and complicated love story. And it has become some sort of tradition that every time I break up with him, Rachel crawls up from the hole of self-embarrassment she lives in to eat my leftovers. Not once, not twice, but three times!" She laughed really creepily. "And I've said to myself: isn't it ironic that Rachel and I keep switching life partners again and again and again over the years?"

Sam was listening very carefully to every word Quinn said. Well, if we understand 'carefully' as 'trying his best not to feel like he wasn't even there for her because she was having a jealous outburst'.

"She kissed my old boyfriend Finn a couple days after she met him. As I've said, she has this thing about Puck every time I dump him because he's not man enough to be in a relationship with me."

"Hey! That's not true!" Puck stepped forward. It actually wasn't true. They split up because she got all crazy and threw a vase at his head or something. The gal is a little freaking much nuts. Totally diagnosed and out of control.

"Shut it." Quinn turned her passive-aggressive speech-giving tone into a psychotic maniac only-aggressive tone as she pointed at Puck. "She even asked Sam out for our junior prom after we broke up! Seriously, guys, don't you find it ironic that this has been happening since our sophomore year?"

"Why the hell is she going all valedictorian today?" Sebastian asked, totally inebriated and missing the whole point of the thing.

Rachel was blushing and channelizing her rage into the microphone she was squeezing in her hand. And trying to figure out why her nemesis was acting as she didn't know that there was nothing between her and Puckerman. Actually Rachel did know that Quinn was trying to put every single person there against her, but I wanted to say it in an elegant way. You know, perks of being an omniscient narrator and stuff. And, by the way, all the people's faces were totally pro-Fabray in that moment, except for the ones who knew the whole story.

"But enough chit chat," Quinn finally said. "Hit it," she finished as she perked her eyebrows provoking Rachel with her own usual phrase.

_[Ironic – Alanis Morissette]_

Guitars started playing while the attendants formed a circle around the girls, like in a school fight. With microphones and insane amounts of surrealism.

_Quinn:  
Yeah… _

_An old man turned ninety-eight.  
He won the lottery and died the next day.  
It's a black fly in your Chardonnay.  
It's a death row pardon two minutes too late._

_And isn't it ironic? Don't you think?_

_Quinn and Rachel:  
It's like rain on your wedding day.  
It's a free ride when you've already paid.  
It's the good advice that you just didn't take.  
And who would've thought? It figures._

_Rachel:  
Mr. Play It Safe was afraid to fly.  
He packed his suitcase and kissed his kids goodbye.  
He waited his whole damn life to take that flight.  
And as the plane crashed down he thought,  
"Well, isn't this nice?"_

_And isn't it ironic? Don't you think?_

_Quinn and Rachel:  
It's like rain on your wedding day.  
It's a free ride when you've already paid.  
It's the good advice that you just didn't take.  
And who would've thought? It figures._

_Rachel:  
Well, life has a funny way…_

_Quinn:  
…of sneaking up on you  
when you think everything's okay  
and everything's going right. _

_Rachel:  
And life has a funny way…_

_Quinn:  
…of helping you out  
when you think everything's gone wrong  
and everything blows up in your face._

_Rachel:  
A traffic jam when you're already late._

_Quinn:  
A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break._

_Rachel:  
It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife._

_Quinn:  
It's meeting the man of my dreams  
and then meeting his beautiful wife._

"But in Rachel's case this actually doesn't matter at all," Quinn added to the song during the instrumental.

_Rachel:  
And isn't it ironic? Don't you think?_

_Quinn:  
A little too ironic.  
And yeah, I really do think…_

_Quinn and Rachel:  
It's like rain on your wedding day.  
It's a free ride when you've already paid.  
It's the good advice that you just didn't take.  
And who would've thought? It figures._

_Rachel:  
And yeah…_

_Quinn:  
Life has a funny way… _

_Rachel:  
…of sneaking up on you. _

_Quinn:  
And… _

_Rachel:  
Life has a funny, funny way…_

_Quinn:  
…of helping you out. _

_Quinn and Rachel:  
Helping you out._

"And isn't it ironic that you are such a pathetic attention whore that even though I've spent five minutes throwing crap at you, you just don't walk away? Oh, well, no, that's not ironic at all. That's you trying to get some recognition and making people talk about you. The reason why you keep faking break-ups with your boyfriends, dressing like a skank in her fifties and not realizing that you won't ever make it no matter how many people you force to tell you how well your life's going is that, breaking news, you are still that freak uploading videos of her singing to MySpace in the very same room of your parents' house while the rest of us have moved on with our lives after graduation, including your boyfriend/ex-boyfriend." And when it looked like Quinn had finished her bloodbath against Rachel, she picked a cup of slushie from someone and threw the content at the other girl's face. "Because four years later, you actually are in the very same place trying to do the very same thing: being the center of a world that won't ever like you."

Rachel saw all the eyes piercing her. Judging her. Laughing at her. Feeling pity for her. She saw the flashes of the phones. The fingers pointing at her. The year 2009 being recreated against her will. She was Rachel Barbra Berry singing 'On My Own' in her animal sweaters and white knee-high socks. She was the loser that couldn't make it. The girl whose dreams were crushed every day. She had just been crushed down from her sky as the grape-flavored ice-cold drops ran down into her dress.

She felt naked among the crowd. She felt weak. She felt broken. But she began running. Or at least she attempted to. She slipped down with a dull blow. The tragic combination of too high heels and slushied floor that generated the loudest general laugh attack ever happened in that gymnasium.

Rachel stood up quickly, not even giving her real friends a chance to help her up. This time she managed to flee, with the thunderous sound of all the mockery drilling her head as the tears seemed like they wanted to make her eyes explode.

She didn't even get into the bathroom. She was too ashamed to walk down the whole hallway, so she just ran into a classroom with all the blinds closed, so no one could see her all torn down.

But there was a person that followed her suit.

Blaine Anderson wrapped her arms around Rachel and pulled her into the warmest hug ever seen. He felt how the slushie soaked his suit, but he didn't care. He just ran his hands up and down Rachel's back to comfort her.

They walked to sit on the teacher's desk without breaking the embrace. The only sounds in the room were Rachel's whimpering and the echoes of the music of the prom.

The moment of tranquility got disrupted by someone's trying to open the door, but Blaine had been clever enough to lock it after he walked in, in case anybody wanted to give Rachel a second round of hell.

The girl opened her eyes and looked at the doorknob moving. After the instinctive reaction, she finally pulled away from the hug and took a deep breath.

Blaine helped her with the smudged makeup. He used his red handkerchief to wipe Rachel's tears off. "You shouldn't be crying. In fact, I don't know why you're crying. That was just usual Quinn bullshit."

"She is right, Blaine." Saying it out loud provoked a second coming of tears in Rachel. "I am the one craving for a second under the sun."

Blaine chuckled, trying to brush off Rachel's pain. "So what?! You are the star. It's your thing. Since when is that something bad about you?"

"Since she is right and I am the only one who hasn't moved on. I am the same I was. Doing the same things I've always done."

"That's not…"

"Yes, it is true," she interrupted her friend. "Kurt is killing it at NYADA. Santana and Finn have the musical. Mercedes and Puck are doing so good in L.A. and Mike is making it in Chicago. And what do I do, Blaine? What do I do? Playing schemers with Quinn while she has the key to every single school in the damn country."

Blaine bit his lip. It was true. Though Rachel was exaggerating a bit, Quinn had made it not into one, but two renowned schools since the last year. "You will rock that place next year. I don't see the problem." Yes, he did see the problem.

"The problem is that one year ago I was being said those exact same words. And look where we are." Rachel gave herself the biggest and most hurtful eyeroll as she stood up and started wandering up and down the room. "Where I am."

"You can go back! You live in New York. The City with capitals. You are living your dream! That's your home now!" he replied with a wide smile on his face that felt more and more tired with every word he struggled to find.

"No, I can't," Rachel replied, staring at the ceiling so as to hold back her tears.

Blaine frowned as he started playing nervously with the corsage Brittany got him. "What? What do you mean you can't?"

"Finn and I are not alright. He is not okay with me doing this. He thinks it's childish and…"

"But you are doing it for him! So this bitch doesn't destroy you!" Blaine said before Rachel could finish saying that her boyfriend wasn't up for having her back in Lima. Back to him.

Rachel turned to her best friend, letting the tears flow out. "Don't you see it, Blaine? This is what I do. I think I have it all under control and then… it turns out that I have already lost it all. She wins."

"No, she doesn't!"

"Blaine!" Rachel yelled. "I've spent the whole morning fighting with Finn over the phone! Santana and Brittany broke up because of me! I broke you down when you only needed to think of yourself and your future!"

And Blaine hurried to cup Rachel's face with both hands to stop her string of self-blaming. "Don't say that! Don't ever say that!"

"What?!" She fought away Blaine's hands and stepped back. "That I am messing with everyone's lives because I can't put mine together?!"

"No! That you broke me!"

The volume of the conversation that was supposed to be about comforting a girl who had just been publically embarrassed was becoming too loud and audible outside the locked classroom.

Rachel took Blaine's hand and pressed her thumb against the bandage covering the wound he got when the boy punched a mirror until he squirmed.

Blaine locked his eyes on Rachel's. She had made her point. And he had taken it.

"You almost didn't audition because of me," Rachel said in a way lower and softer voice.

"Almost," he repeated. "But I auditioned. So no harm done."

Rachel put her finger on the sore spot once again. Literally.

Both of them chuckled. They just laughed weakly as they sat again on the teacher's desk. As usual, they might argue and yell at each other, but they always ended up either laughing or being messes of tears. This time both A and B were correct.

"She hasn't won," Blaine said as he held Rachel's hand. "We can't give up. Who are we if we give up?"

Rachel turned her head to look at Blaine. "Quitters."

"Since when are we quitters?" he asked as he looked back into Rachel's wet, red eyes. "We are not quitters. We won't ever be. We won't ever give up."

Blaine Anderson knew in that moment he wasn't talking about the war in progress. And Rachel knew too which subject they were treating with those reassuring words.

And somehow, it happened.

Blaine locked his lips on Rachel's slowly. Tenderly. Enjoying the kiss he had been longing to give for too long.

And Rachel kissed him back.

That wasn't like the previous times they had kissed. This time there was nothing stopping them. No interruptions. No boundaries set. Or at least not any taken into account. They went on and on. And further and further.

Rachel caressed Blaine's face. Blaine ran his fingers through Rachel's hair. And little by little they realized Blaine was leaning toward Rachel until she was totally laid out on the desk and she had taken the boy's bowtie off and had opened three buttons of his shirt while kissing his neck.

Blaine felt himself burning inside. Burning in a way he had only felt in dreams. He lost his jacket and let Rachel remove his shirt totally, tossing it away as he undid the zip on the side of her dress. A dress he took off with gentle hands. The same gentle hands that roamed over Rachel's body as she kissed him passionately.

No words were exchanged. Just looks full of heat and desire.

Rachel unbuckled Blaine's belt while he was standing and she wrapped her legs around Blaine's waist. And the moment they saw each other glimmering under the dim moonlight filtering through the windows of the classroom in the nude, they forgot who they were and just lost control and let it all finally happen.

* * *

**Boom.**


	20. The prom king

**20. The prom king**

"Douchebag."

That was the word Finn Hudson said the most since his bromance with Jesse St. James started off half a year ago. And that night wasn't an exception after the fourteen times the awkward dancer had had to call his friend that name.

"So if I say that all that noise next door is because Santana finally grew literal balls and Kurt fell for her I am a douchebag but if you keep reminding me that I slept with Blaine every thirty minutes you're just pointing out my bad taste?" Jesse replied while laughing. A reply not as far from reality as he might think.

Both of them were sitting on the couch at Finn and Rachel's, drinking beers in the same exact position they had maintained for the past days, since the diva left for Lima to execute her master plan to defeat Quinn Fabray. An overly exaggerated action on Berry's part which her boyfriend disapproved since the very first moment it was being elaborated by his brother, Santana and the aforementioned Berry. Anyway, this is a modern society and Finn's opinion is absolutely worthless to his girlfriend. Well, we're talking about Finn, a boy who learned how to do his shoelaces up too late to be said out loud, so it should be worthless to society in general.

"Seriously, what's going on in there?" Finn asked when their conversation was interrupted once again by Kurt and Santana's yelling, crying, giggling and 'oh, lord, whys?' pre, post and during Rachel's phone call to show them Blaine and Brittany's duet at the prom.

Jesse rolled his eyes as he put his boots on the coffee table, uncapping another beer. "If I were you, I would be more worried about what's going on in Lima right now."

"Douchebag."

What Finn needed the least right then was more doubts in his mind. He knew what was going on in Lima. Or at least that was his belief. In his head, Rachel would be dancing with Blaine to a ballad sung by the little Warbler himself, because a male solo not performed by Blaine was unconceivable to him. She would have her head rested on the boy's shoulder and, if God allowed, she would only be thinking of what she left back home. Home a.k.a. the New York apartment his and Jesse's butts were adopting a cushion shape in.

Nevertheless, what Rachel Berry was doing in that exact moment was having a pity sex session with Blaine Anderson in a classroom. Horny prom sex on the teacher's desk. With slutty dresses. Slutty dresses off. Dirty slushied prom sex making the chains of a long-time-stretched unresolved sexual tension burst off. There are so many ways to describe the frisky events that happened in the WMHS prior to the coronation of the new royalty that I could write a 5000 words essay on it titled 'How Funny The Reactions Are Going To Be', but it would be even funnier if I go on.

What was I saying? Oh, yes, eventually Blaine stuck it into Berry (no euphemisms needed anymore, we are all grown-ups) while Finn was thinking that his woman would be behaving herself. Again: that's why Finn's opinion is absolutely worthless.

"Don't call me douchebag every time you can't find counterarguments to my solidly based thesis. It's getting old."

"Here goes the counterargument: Rachel and I are alright. She loves me. I love her. I trust her. She trusts me. Thesis unbased."

Jesse eyerolled like the male bitch he was. "First, unbased is not a word. Second, I was here earlier today when you two talked on the phone, and under this assumption, alright is not a word either."

"That's for sure, because you spend more time here than in your own apartment."

"You are so welcome," Jesse replied with a wide proud smile. "But my point here is not the hours a day I grant you my so-pleasant company. She knows you don't trust her."

"Did you talk to her?"

"No, but if you oppose Rachel's attending a goddamn prom with a friend she's sworn a thousand times that's totally sexually inoffensive to her… Rachel knows you are suspicious. And that's a mistake."

Finn's tone got more heated. "I don't oppose Rachel's going to prom with Blaine! I oppose her doing all this scheming and lying and faking break-ups with me to annoy Quinn! I know she wouldn't cheat on me."

Jesse perked an eyebrow. "Do you?"

"Yes. I do." Finn's words were 100% certain.

"Do you think she would never lie to you?"

"Never." And his answers were calm, slow and secure.

Jesse took his phone out of his pocket and dialed Santana's number. As the silence fell made between the newly-bros, the Lima Height's diva's ringtone became louder and louder until she came into the apartment. "What?" she said as she slammed the door behind her.

"How do you know I was here?" Jesse asked, totally in the blue.

Santana took a seat between them both and her heels joined the other two pairs of boots on the coffee table. "You are always here."

Finn burst into laughter. Hell if he enjoyed that. "Douchebag."

"Whatever," Jesse continued. "What I called you for: where were you last week when you left that note on your door saying that you were off to save the world?" he asked Santana.

"Lima. Saving the world," she replied as she took Jesse's beer from his hands and downed it in one go.

Finn frowned. "Don't go all 'I was raised on tequila' on me, but are you sure you shouldn't stop drinking? We heard you stumble home drunk an hour ago."

"Rachel called while Brittany was singing. So beautiful. I got all depressed. She was singing with Blaine. She should be singing with me! Beer prescribed."

"Beer prescribed because Blaine was singing?" Finn laughed, trying to chill out because of all the tension his bud was trying to put into his head, which was dizzy by Santana's breath smell. Anyway, as long as he was singing with Brittany, he wouldn't be slow dancing with Rachel, so chilling-out accomplished.

"Do not change the subject," Jesse resumed his statement once again. "Did Rachel know you were there?"

"Bitch, please. I caught her doing double duets with Porcelain, she-Chang and Frodo. Musical double duets, you fucking weirdo," she had to specify when she noticed how wide open Finn's eyes got at the words 'doing double duets'.

"What did Rachel tell you when you asked her if she knew about Santana's whereabouts?" Jesse made his final question pointing his finger at Finn.

So Finn sighed, facing an undeniable and inexcusable point. "That she didn't know…"

"…when hell if she knew. Rachel Barbra Berry cast in a recurring role on the fourth season of Pretty Little Liars," he finished.

"You watch that crap?" Santana asked, trying his best to vocalize. "Seriously, how couldn't I call your gayness earlier?"

Jesse shrugged. "Good shit though."

And Santana replied with a nod. "Yeah, it's good."

Finn stood up, kind of freaking out about how they had ended up talking about Pretty Little Liars when the image of his theoretically faithful girlfriend was being put to waste. "Why are you making me distrust Rachel?! You are my friends. And her friends."

"Okay, Chubbers, chillax and don't sweat it," Santana intervened. "Here's the deal, and I say this to you from the bottom of my heartbroken heartless heart: Rachel is not over Frodo. Frodo is not over Rachel. Raise your hand everyone in this room who never bought that crap." Five seconds of silence fell as both Jesse and Santana did their ayes. "Those balls of yours Rachel's keeping somewhere under lock and key here are raising all their pubes as well."

"Gross," Jesse had to say. Literally had to say.

Santana continued anyway, not paying attention to Jesse's comment. "That's a reality, my dear Lima Teen Buddha. 'Fear not' no person shall ever say to you. But that doesn't mean that Gelly Bean is giving Rachel another singing hole."

"Seriously, do you have to be so graphically disgusting?" Jesse was forced to intervene again.

"Yes," Santana replied as she gave him the slowest and mushiest bitch slap ever. "But shut the fuck up if you don't want me to draw you a sketch. I have seen the tool in question. I can draw it in full detail, HD 720p and 3D Dolby Surround if you get me a brick of clay and the soundtrack of Ghost."

Finn started snapping his fingers in Santana's face so that she would go back to the topic. "Yes, yes, Jesse has seen it too. Go on. Focus. Focus."

"Douchebag," the alluded replied.

"My point here," Santana resumed. "Brittany was going to prom with Blaine. Fabray was going too, so we asked Puckerman to go with Berry to piss the bitch off. The theme this year is 'nonsense' and having Rachel singing a solo into Frodo's microphone would be totally logical. That's all. I'm done here." And she stood up and headed for the door. "Oh, I almost forgot something: Gay-For-The-Non-Gay, we all know you practically moved in here because you are unable to sleep under the same sheets you and Frodo sweated the hell out of that night of lust and homosexual coming, you are not fooling anyone." But before leaving the Finchel's nest of love, she had one last side note. "And by 'coming' I mean self-revelation, not… coming… You know what I mean." And she slammed the door. Bitch knows how to do an exit.

Finn took a deep breath and let himself fall back onto the couch. "That 'gross' is on me."

"You should call her though," Jesse said in a very pacific tone, trying to set aside the ugly truth exposed by his co-lead. "I mean… not that you should fix it before it's too late, because it's never going to be too late between you two, but… It's a call and a 'sorry' doesn't cost a buck."

"I think you're right."

Jesse squeezed Finn's shoulder in support before he stood up as well and picked up his jacket. "I should be getting home." Although the possibilities of his spending the night wandering through the city instead of going to his Blaine-scented place were incredibly high.

"You don't have to if you don't want to, man. It's alright, you can stay here for the night."

Jesse could only but smile in appreciation. "Wanna take your chances and see if this prom night we end up with me beating the crap out of you again?"

Finn chuckled. "Douchebag. And don't stay still there and bring me a beer. I think I'm still the king."

* * *

The prom night was coming to an end. Couples were running down the hallways, holding each other's tipsy hands looking for a place to make out in with some privacy. The effects of alcohol, solitude and hormonal exasperation were palpable under the roof of the William McKinley High School. Some others call it 'the effect of young, reckless love'. I'd rather refer to it as 'the reason why Rachel Berry spent five minutes looking for her panties that night'.

Blaine was the first one to walk out of the classroom. He hurried to his locker to look into the mirror and fix his hair. It had taken a libidinous Berry to do so, but finally Blaine's hair gel was overcome. But the door of his locker was suddenly shut.

"Already twelve, Blaine. Twelve!" Tina yelled at the boy's face. "Twelve freaking people are in. Broadway forums never lie. There are pictures attached and everything. Look!" she said before planting her phone right on Blaine's nose. And then she saw those eyes. Those guilt-leaking eyes begging for the deserved penalty after committing such a treachery towards both a friend and his morals. Blaine Anderson: accomplice of a cheater. Cheater by association. Cheater. Cheater. Cheater.

Rachel left the classroom of the crime in front of Tina's eyes. She saw perfectly how she was biting her lip and trying to pull down her dress. But this time with shame, not only with cold.

"Oh my." Asians are so good at math and that girl put two and two together in no time. "Oh my. Oh my. OH MY! Tell me you didn't!"

The only response she got from Blaine was an avoidance of eye-contact and a back turned on her.

Blaine walked to the exit, but he got intercepted by Brittany, who pushed him back to the gym as she urged everybody else in the hallways to hurry up before they missed the coronation.

And there they were. All of them. Blaine and Rachel in opposite sides of the venue, totally on their own, praying for the evening to have a quick wrap. Quinn sitting on Sam's lap as they did cute stuff in Puck's face, who was drinking in an absolutely related to Barbie and Ken vodka-off with Sebastian. Artie holding a hand out for Tina to take it in a foreseeable futile wish to get crowned that night… they all were having a blast in their own personal way.

"Attention, please," Figgins interrupted the general blabber one more year from the stage. "I would like to announce the King and Queen of this 2013 William McKinley High Senior Prom, before this structure collapses and we have to add another lawsuit to the pile. But before I proceed, I'd like to give you a communication from the janitorial staff, and I read textually:" he introduced the handwritten note he was about to read. "Devil take the hindmost, and the last ones will clean off the mess."

"Isn't that why they're paid for?!" Stoner Brett shouted from the crowd.

Sue, who was standing along with Brittany behind the principal, stepped forward to talk into the microphone. "Stoner Brett, I am a single mother. When I say 'call it a night', this charade is over and you will all run as if your parents were about to prevent themselves from having you via time travel."

Figgins snatched the mic out of Sue's hand to prevent the school from another potential lawsuit. The pile he had talked about before had Sue's name on the 81% of the defendant's dotted lines. Anyhow, Brittany ended up picking up the microphone. "Given the lovely habit of our graduates to pay us regular and abundant visits, I'd like to invite the current Prom Queen to the stage to crown the new royalty. A tradition I will perpetuate myself since this same July with a special edition of 'Fondue For Two: Locker Room Fondue' where I'll expose the darkest secrets only the wet stinky towels know about. Anyway: welcome Mrs. Rachel Berry to the stage."

The last thing Rachel wanted in that moment was spotlight. Oh my God, I can't believe what I have just written. But yes, Rachel Berry wasn't feeling like being the center of attention after the public mockery she had received earlier. On the other hand, she knew there was no possible way to escape from there, so she walked upon the stage as dignified as possible. Thankfully the slushie Quinn had thrown at her didn't leave any visible stains.

Rachel and Blaine's eyes met from the distance as the girl was given the crown of the king, but she quickly looked away when Figgins started talking again with a red envelope in his hands. "I don't know when or where the election took place…"

"I forgot so I asked random people five minutes ago," Brittany excused herself from the back of the stage.

"Anyway…" the principal preferred to omit the total lack of seriousness and just make the 'ceremony' as brief as possible. "This year's Prom King is…" Drumrolls were echoing in the room. The spotlights shining up and down over the attendants' heads. Nobody understanding why there were no nominees, but… it was nonsense. So who did actually give a crap about that technicality? "Mr. Blaine Anderson."

People applauded and cheered for Blaine, who was totally not in the mood for an ovation. They were patting him on the back back on his way to the stage. Everybody was calling out his name. He was loved and respected in that high school, which in other circumstances would have been something that would fill him with joy and pride. But not that night. Definitely not that night.

Following protocol, Rachel kissed him on the cheek. God… that moment was uncomfortable. It was the definition of awkwardness indeed. And that kiss… It didn't feel cold for neither of them, but definitely full of fear and remorse.

Blaine stood next to Brittany, who winked an eye at her date and congratulated him with a tight neck-breaker hug.

"And the winner for Prom Queen is…" Figgins was decided to make it quick with that second envelope, but, third year in a row, he rolled his eyes and sighed. "Seriously? Can't we just have a normal prom some year?"

Brittany grinned as she squeezed Blaine's hand. "I am going to be remembered forever," she whispered into the boy's ear and giggled.

"Blaine Anderson," the principal said before he dropped the two cards with Blaine's name on them and left the stage.

The president of the student body raised the king/queen's hand into the air and was the one and only to whoo and celebrate Blaine's double victory.

Sue leaned down to pick up the cards Figgins had just dropped and read them before turning to Mrs. Pierce. "Brittany, what did you do?"

"As I've said before, I asked people about the crown thing. But I only asked two people. And I asked them only about the king. And both of them said Blaine. And as everybody loves him and he is everywhere, every time and in every single musical number, I thought: so what? It's not that weird if he's already omnipresent."

"And how am I supposed to dance with myself?" Blaine asked with a frown on his face as he tried to deduce how to put on two crowns at the same time.

Brittany shrugged, picked up the queen crown and put it on Rachel's head. "Rachel can fill in for you. You're basically one." And she hopped off the stage.

I have a correction to make: when I said before 'It was the definition of awkwardness indeed', it actually wasn't. Awkward is when you have to walk off stage and place yourself in the middle of a crowded gymnasium where everybody is looking at you quietly without celebrating your coronation while you have to hold the hand of the girl you have just had sex with even though she has a boyfriend and there are no words needed for you to acknowledge it has been an epic mistake.

_[Save the last dance for me – The Drifters]_

"I… I was supposed to sing in this too…" Blaine chuckled, trying to ease off the tension between them as they started dancing.

Rachel rolled her eyes and chuckled back at the surrealism of the situation she had decided to stop believing in. "You got both titles for something."

_Sam:  
You can dance  
every dance with the guy who gives you the eye,  
let him hold you tight. _

_Joe:  
You can smile  
every smile for the man who held your hand  
underneath the pale moonlight. _

_Rory:  
But don't forget who's taking you home  
and in whose arms you're gonna be.  
So darling, save the last dance for me.  
Mmmm… _

_Artie:  
Oh, I know (New Directions Boys: Oh I know)  
that the music's fine (New Directions Boys: Yes, I know)  
like sparkling wine. (New Directions Boys: Oh I know)  
Go and have your fun. (New Directions Boys: Yes, I know) _

_New Directions Boys:  
Oh I know. _

_Sebastian:  
Laugh and sing, (New Directions Boys: Yes, I know)  
but while we're apart (New Directions Boys: Oh I know)  
don't give your heart (New Directions Boys: Yes, I know)  
to anyone. (New Directions Boys: Oh I know) _

_New Directions Boys:  
Yes, I know. _

_Blaine with the New Directions Boys harmonizing:  
But don't forget who's taking you home  
and in whose arms you're gonna be.  
So darling, save the last dance for me.  
Mmmm…_

_Baby don't you know I love you so?  
Can't you feel it when we touch?  
I will never never let you go.  
I love you oh so much._

Okay, that was reaching an unsuspected level of awkwardness. Mother of God.

_Joe and Sam:  
You can dance (New Directions Boys: You can dance)  
go and carry on (New Directions Boys: You can dance)  
till the night is gone (New Directions Boys: You can dance)  
and it's time to go. (New Directions Boys: You can dance)_

_New Directions Boys:  
You can dance. _

_Artie and Sebastian:  
If he asks (New Directions Boys: You can dance)  
if you're all alone, (New Directions Boys: You can dance)  
can he take you home, (New Directions Boys: You can dance)  
you must tell him no. (New Directions Boys: You can dance) _

_Blaine with the New Directions Boys harmonizing:  
'Cause don't forget who's taking you home  
and in whose arms you're gonna be.  
So darling, save the last dance for me._

Rachel and Blaine ended up dancing and smiling and laughing and enjoying the moment. One of the weirdest moments of their lives with everybody staring at them, not joining them on the dance floor. But if they could read each other's regret in the eyes they were looking into, they could also choose to embrace that song and have some fun out of it.

_Blaine with the New Directions Boys harmonizing:  
'Cause don't forget who's taking you home  
and in whose arms you're gonna be.  
So darling, save the last dance for me.  
Mmmm… _

_Save the last dance for me.  
Mmmm… _

_Save the last dance for me._


	21. Airplanes

**21. Airplanes**

Friday morning. 6:32 AM. Blaine Anderson was in his bathroom, gelling up his hair and giving the last touches to his look, ready for class after his day off.

One of the facts Principal Figgins hadn't foreseen when he authorized a prom for a Wednesday was that the chances of having a 78% of students with a killer hangover were more than high. The attendance of that Thursday was 8%.

Before you start judging me, I can do the math. The other 14%, among which Blainey Anderson could be found, spent the following 24 hours after the dance regretting the mistakes perpetrated that dreadful night. In fact, the hallways that day were so quiet not because of the absence of people, but because none of the present had anything interesting to talk about.

Anyhow, Friday morning it is. He has his bowtie on, no hair out of place and, after popping the grossest of the pimples (karma, it's called), a very familiar intro started playing out of nowhere.

_[Hot N Cold – Katy Perry]_

And then Sebastian Smythe drew open the curtain of his bath and started singing with only a towel around his waist, though his hair was perfectly dry and the rest of his body all wet and shiny.

_Sebastian:  
You change your mind  
like a girl changes clothes._

And he stepped out of the bath…

_Sebastian:  
Yeah you, PMS  
like a bitch  
I would know._

…as little Blainers freaked the fuck out of the situation.

_Sebastian:  
And you overthink,  
always speak  
cryptically._

So he opened the door and fled the bathroom, trying to leave the surprise serenade in there.

_Sebastian:  
I should know  
that you're no good for me!_

And he ended up running into Marley's face, who was standing in the middle of the hallway of his house.

_Marley and Sebastian:  
'Cause you're hot then you're cold.  
You're yes then you're no.  
You're in and you're out.  
You're up and you're down._

_You're wrong when it's right.  
It's black and it's white.  
We fight, we break up.  
We kiss, we make up._

_Sebastian:  
You!_

_Marley:  
You don't really want to stay, no._

_Sebastian:_  
_You!_

_Marley:  
But you don't really want to go-o._

_ Marley and Sebastian:  
You're hot then you're cold.  
You're yes then you're no.  
You're in and you're out.  
You're up and you're down._

Blaine made it out of his house, satchel slung over his shoulder and praying that he had picked the car keys while running downstairs. He thanked God and climbed in. Not noticing who was already sitting in the passenger seat.

_Kurt:  
We used to be  
just like twins.  
So in sync._

_The same energy._  
_Now's a dead battery._

He stumbled out of the car, practically having a panic attack and as he tried to stand up from his kneeling position on the floor, he looked up at the figure standing in front of him.

_Jesse with Kurt backing up:  
Used to laugh  
'bout nothing.  
Now your plain boring._

_I should know that_  
_you're not gonna change._

Blaine started running down the street as everybody chased him, keeping up with the breathing requirements of the song pretty impressively.

_Jesse, Kurt, Marley and Sebastian:  
'Cause you're hot then you're cold.  
You're yes then you're no.  
You're in and you're out.  
You're up and you're down._

_You're wrong when it's right._  
_It's black and it's white._  
_We fight, we break up._  
_We kiss, we make up._

_Sebastian:  
You! _

_Marley:  
You don't really want to stay, no. (Kurt: Oh!)_

_Sebastian:  
You!_

_Jesse:  
But you don't really want to go-o. (Kurt: Oh…) _

_Jesse, Kurt, Marley and Sebastian:  
You're hot then you're cold.  
You're yes then you're no.  
You're in and you're out.  
You're up and you're down. (Kurt: Down!)_

He turned around a corner that led to an alley and he knew he had left them all behind. Or at least that was his thought. Anyway, he took a couple seconds to lean on his thighs and try to catch his breath.

_Rachel:  
Someone call the doctor  
got a case of a love bipolar.  
Stuck on a roller coaster  
and I can't get off this ride _

Rachel sang as she came out of the darkness of the alley, getting closer and closer to Blaine, obscenely slipping her hand into the boy's polo shirt as she sang into his ear.

_Rachel:  
You change your mind  
like a girl changes clothes._

Then four sets of hands joined the diva, took eight tight grips on Blaine's sung-about clothes and ripped them off, leaving him practically shirtless in the middle of a crowded street.

_Rachel with Jesse, Kurt, Marley and Sebastian:  
'Cause you're hot then you're cold.  
You're yes then you're no.  
You're in and you're out.  
You're up and you're down._

_You're wrong when it's right. (Rachel: Right!)  
It's black and it's white.  
We fight, we break up.  
We kiss, we make up. (Rachel: We kiss, we make up!)_

_Jesse, Kurt, Marley and Sebastian:  
You're hot then you're cold.  
You're yes then you're no.  
You're in then you're out.  
You're up then you're down._

_Rachel:  
Down! _

_Jesse, Kurt, Marley and Sebastian:  
You're wrong when it's right.  
It's black and it's white.  
We fight, we break up.  
We kiss, we make up._

_Jesse and Sebastian:  
You! _

_Marley and Rachel:  
You don't really want to stay, no (Kurt: Oh!)_

_Jesse and Sebastian:  
You!_

_Marley and Rachel:_  
_But you don't really want to go-o. (Kurt: Oh…)_

_Jesse, Kurt, Marley and Sebastian:  
You're hot then you're cold. (Rachel: Cold!)  
You're yes then you're no. (Rachel: No!)  
You're in then you're out.  
You're up then you're down…_

Blaine Anderson woke up in the middle seat of an airplane, between Artie and Sam. He yelled his way out of the dream/nightmare/bizarre unconscious musical tribute to himself and fought for some air as his short but strong legs just kicked the next seat with more intensity he would have wished for. A seat occupied by Mrs. Brittany S. Pierce, who turned around with an accusatory finger. "As a respected member of the LGBT community, you cannot give me this kind of treatment, so this abuse is not going to stop, because it's already over or we'll see each other's faces in court or at GLAAD Awards where you are gonna be publically condemned."

"I really need to go to the bathroom," he said as he struggled to unbuckle the seatbelt and stood heading to his right.

"Don't expect me to let you out," Artie replied.

Sam was the one to get up and Blaine ran to the bathroom, where he locked himself in for 15 good minutes, creating all kinds of rumors and mockery around the New Directions' kids, all of them related either to diarrhea or to 'preventing the lower body from the Economy Class Syndrome' and the sweet sweet dream he had just woken up from.

"Is he okay?" Will asked Tina and Rachel, who were sitting with him in the row behind Blaine's.

Rachel took a deep breath before answering with a plain and simple, "he's been under a lot of pleasure lately." The problem is that her subconscious was playing some awful taste jokes too. "Pressure, I mean."

On the diva's left, Tina had promised herself not to say anything about the private 200-farenheit kiki Blaine and Rachel had on prom night, but that misspelling on Rachel's part and the mother of blushes rising up her face was just too much for her scarce good will. "That's what she said."

Rachel frowned at her newly-friend/ally/secret-keeper-without-her-knowin g. "That's not how the 'That's what she said' works." Maybe she didn't know how that worked, but the Asian perked eyebrow made Berry realize that her cheating adventure was intel under the control of the greatest gossip in high-school.

"I think you know what I mean," Tina replied.

With eyes wide open, Rachel carried on with her unceasing comments to the teacher on the setlist for the competition in a surprisingly successful attempt to change the subject. And, surprisingly as well, she knew that Tina had let her go with that one.

Meanwhile, Will's head returned to hibernation mode right after Rachel's "As I was saying, Mr. Schue, I honestly think that your election of the opening num…"

The word 'number' literally didn't make it to Will's brain. It just echoed away from the vast calm of an exhausted teacher's inner thoughts. "Third year in a row on my way to a National competition, and I can't say this is getting any easier. Either me any younger." He sighed to himself. Sigh to oneself in oneself's head… isn't that a murmur? Was Will Schuester trying to kill himself? Is there any way this man can be depicted as someone remotely interesting? Because I'm trying my goddamn best.

"Last year I had a three-year-old well conformed group. Solid, stable, in peace… Yes, they might have ended up throwing a couple punches at each other in the hotel and some pillows got into the pool, but… I can't stand the situation in the choir room. Where do I start? Artie has this amazing experience. Four years with me, always there, he has never failed. He has the instinct of a winner, but not the skills. So he gets frustrated all the time because he expects me to give him all the solos due to his seniority. Which I cannot do."

I can explain that one. It is called the gravitational force Blaine exerts on every possible male solo in the Glee Club. A theory that will be more deeply elaborated by Santana Lopez in her book 'I am the support of this world, and if it wasn't for me we would be all rotting in hell by now. Not official title, pending on revision'. If she only knew that the world went to crap when Rachel unzipped those kid-sized pants… But that's a reaction yet to come. Will's voiceover:

"I have Tina in the exact same situation. She manages pressure so well, but… since we found Marley… and with Brittany already in the team… she gets outshadowed both on singing and dancing skills. So more frustration, and hatred and instruments thrown around the classroom. About Marley… she's just a sophomore but she does real good. Except since she met Rachel and they sang that duet, the only thing she does now is looking at everyone with teary eyes as if she was a puppy left in a gas station on a rainy day."

"Brittany is the only constant thing in this group. She has remained faithful to her style during her whole trajectory in Glee Club. A trajectory you can't rely too much on though. And before I forget and hoping that if I think of her, her ears will start ringing and she'll shut up: Rachel. Unleashing chaos with every single visit she pays, as usual. I had eight graduates last year. None of them come back regularly to rejoin Glee and destabilize everything here. I love her, and if it wasn't for these visits we wouldn't even be on this plane, but… if only she could do it without messing everything up, if only she did it in silence like Rory. Haven't heard a word from his mouth in months. Is it bad? Not even remotely. I love people who swallow down his problems. That's why Sebastian's attitude is completely justified. He bitches all the time about everything, but he doesn't disturb anyone's focus because we managed not to listen to him from the back of the class. Or just people with no problems! Sugar and Joe have been dating for… I don't even know if they are dating but they are not doing a global-concern issue out of it, which is absolutely perfect."

"I am living under minimal requirements lately. The wedding, the Glee Club, the classes… I've even tried to look for member for the New Directions in the caterer's kitchen and the florist's office. Blessed by the Heavens when we got Jacob Ben Israel. Yes, I just thanked God for of giving me that boy. This is how desperate I am. We did it our first year, why not our fourth year? Oh, yes, because we were supposed to be someone in this school. When I finally had a powerhouse choir, my key pillars go and then I have to manage with the leftovers. And Blaine… he just can't be an 8-in-1 and stand for all the empty chairs. And even if I try, Sam's no Finn. I need someone to take the lead and motivate the group."

There is a point where every teacher loses their calling. And when we all thought that Will Schuester's moment of truth came with A Little Less Conversation, this happened: the man who encouraged his students to pursue his dreams, the man who helped them through their rough patches, the man who was there for everyone's moment in the pit… all these men were just one who referred to his Glee Club as 'the leftovers'.

He just stopped getting the glee out of the club. He was apathetic, brushing depression with his fingertips, and the only thing keeping him from taking an overdose of Emma's OCD pills was that he was too busy. Always too busy to attend anything that wasn't related to Glee or the wedding. But right then, in that plane seat, with a deaf ear from all Rachel's gibberish, he had a realization.

His head had stopped and emptied itself for enough minutes for him to open his eyes to the kind of teacher he had become. He saw it all clear. And he felt shame for himself.

As I've said before, I'd love for this man to have the slightest inch of interest in his body, and it would be an awesome plot twist if I could only write down "he opened the door of the airplane and jumped into the nearest cloud shouting that his life had no meaning at all for him." But it didn't happen that way. He stuck to the classic boring existential struggle that nobody gives a crap about, especially in his case.

"William, a word."

Will asked Sue to join him as a chaperone for the trip to L.A. mostly because Emma was up to her neck with planning the wedding. And mostly because he was totally unable to arrange the kids for the night. They had to pick between either spending their money on plane tickets or hotels. A road trip with 12 timebombs was too much for him, so he picked option B: ask the people they knew in Los Angeles to provide them with shelter for that night. That way he would only have to handle four kids tops.

Sue, expert at putting people in the place they would shine their best (ergo, bottom of the pyramid), organized the kids in three houses gladly based on their skills. "This is the plan: Brittany, She-Chang, Wheels and the Stigma Boy go to Wheezy's so that we can exploit their connections with God and sing some gospel, because you are going to need it. Barbra, the tall Warbler, the Stripper Trout and the Jewfro go to Puckerman's. Mostly because I want to see how they deal with their relation with Quinn Fabray."

Will frowned. "The whole purpose of a well-thought organization is that they don't kill each other."

"And what do Jacob and I have to do with Quinn Fabray?" Sebastian enquired.

"I need Jacob to film the cockfight of the other two and you can't go with the other gay because the only sex that's going to happen in Chez Gaston is between him and me." Sue's reply left everyone perplexed. "So the other Barbra, Gaston's brother, the one that speaks in Latin and his girlfriend or whatever's going on between them are staying with me and Mr. Anderson." Cooper Anderson didn't know what the coach of the Cheerios had in store for him when he offered his house. Poor guy. "So, William, you choose where to go."

Schuester saw the light the moment he could choose between a whole sequel of the eternal monologue of Rachel and a long night of sleep. "I'll go to Mercedes'. Rachel can take good care of the rest, right, Rachel?" Nothing like keeping Berry busy with a banal task no one needs.

Rachel replied with her usual two-finger military salute as the light of 'seatbelts-on' lit. As she prepared to buckle it, she felt a hand squeezing her forearm strong enough to sever it.

A deafening yell came from Tina's mouth as she cut off Rachel's blood circulation with one hand and held her phone with the other one. "I got in!" she said in tears while reading a text from her parents.

Then two stewardesses hurried to urge her to turn off her phone during the landing. But who cares about a plane crashing and everybody dying in a ball of fire when you just made it into the New York Academy of Dramatic Arts?


	22. The night before

**22. The night before**

"So… quick catch-up. You and Santana. Shoot," Mercedes broke the ice in her living room. Living room/steam room, because that house was the size of a sauna.

Along with Puck and Cooper Anderson, she had offered her more-than-humble home to the New Directions the night before their competition. Unfortunately for them, Will had split the kids in three equally-sized groups, each one of them going to one of the selfless hosts. And you might ask: why is that unfortunate? Because after a year listening to Mercedes Jones talk about how brilliant and how awesome her life among the Angelino jet set was, they got carried away and believed that she didn't live in a condo where she barely fitted in. No pun intended about her weight, though losing a couple dress sizes was very useful on her daily life in the miniscule apartment.

There they were, Artie, Brittany, Joe, Tina and Will Schuester, looking at each other awkwardly as they tried to squeeze four people in a couch that crackled under their scared butts. For a moment Artie thought he was lucky to have brought his own chair. The smile got wiped off his face when he realized he probably would have to sleep in it.

Tina was the first to give up on the fight for a quarter of the cushion and stood up, wrapping her arm around Mercedes' and taking her to the kitchen. Maybe for a drink, maybe for some air. "Okay… do you have a secret cellar for sexual perversions that we can use for the night or you really thought six people could sleep in here? Because you've only showed us one kitchen, one bathroom and one bedroom and there seemed not to be any secret doors in any of the walls. Trust me, I've been seeking them since the minute I've walked in," the Asian diva said as she checked behind the fridge for a passage that might lead to a chamber full of chains, leather and probably a tower built out of chicken buckets.

"I thought my place would be finished by this week. You know, fumigating and stuff, but… you know… well… you know how it goes. They ask you to move out for a couple days and they might be renting your place to eight families of Japanese tourists for the summer," she answered, flushed, as she fixed some drinks for her guests.

"We are your friends. I am your friend. And you didn't have to pretend that you were living like a queen to impress us."

"What? No! I told you next time you come here I'll show you my house up in Beverly Hills. I can show it to you tonight, but I don't know how good the fumes can be for your singing tomorrow." Mercedes avoided eye contact as much as possible, but there was little space in her house that day where you didn't meet anyone's range of vision.

Tina closed the door, though it was kind of useless given the density of the paper-thin walls. "You are living in L.A. In a shitty apartment. So what?! You made it! You got out of Lima and probably have a job, because even garbage cans like this have a rent to pay."

Mercedes finally gave in. She left the tray with glasses of cheap champagne on the counter and leaned against the wall, looking at her friend. "I thought they'd offered me the opportunity to launch my career, tweeted too fast and they took the offer back the next day. They had found something much better than a back-up singer/part-time worker in a diner on rollerblades while singing Xanadu." She chuckled weakly.

"You could've told us instead of setting up with a charade all this time," Tina answered, lacking of regret, full of support and good intentions to make her friend learn a lesson.

"Mike's the number one in Chicago, Kurt has everything he wanted in NYADA, Finn and Santana are already working and having a real career, Quinn is accepted everywhere she wants to get in and every day I walk down these streets I see banners and flyers of Puck's business. I am a waitress with plates of fries instead of microphones and a spotlight." Mercedes rolled her eyes as they started getting filled with sour tears. "Now you got into NYADA too and Artie into that trial for his legs. He's going to walk again! And you're going to throw Rachel Berry down!" She laughed unexpectedly. "What do I have?" she asked, mostly to herself, in a much less joyous tone.

"Time." Will Schuester replied through the door before he opened it. "And people supporting you and a whole city ready for you to take it." He made a pause to hug his alum. "You are 19. And if the world is tough for full-grown people, why would anyone make it easier for you? It's not that you should give up, not in the least, but this is it. Life is hard and you can't expect to succeed on your first attempt or to have it all given to you on a silver platter."

It was not the usual "keep following your dreams" Will Schuester's speech. All his recent struggling had made of Will a way darker man. Realistic, pessimistic, you can call it however you want. But that was it. Life's a bitch. You either take it or you don't, but no one can ever deny that anymore.

"Besides, I had to retake senior year. Yes, I'm rocking it, but I don't have any plans for the future. Nobody paid attention to that because I seem to be only defined by my failed relationship with Santana, but here I am. Smiling high and mighty because I am a proud unicorn." Brittany's words were far from empty or stupid. She talked the truth. Plain, simple and accepted truth. "Tina told you. You got out of Lima. You are doing things, even though I can't picture you in rollerblades without spilling tomato soup all over your generous bosom every half a song."

"And yes, I might be walking in the next ten years, but those legs won't take me to the notes only you can reach," Artie added. "I know it's a very poor argument, but I have nothing else to say because these people have already said it all." He smiled widely, showing off his perfect teeth as he tried to squeeze his head through the jungle of legs trying to fit through the kitchen door.

* * *

"I thought you were going to Cooper's," Rachel told Marley when the two of them, Sam and Jacob walked into Noah Puckerman's house. A pretty big house close to the beach, with an obscenely sized pool (not because of the length of it but due to the alleged penile shape of it, though the Freudian analysis of the guy's sexuality ought to be postponed until the next volume of the story).

The other girl was about to reply when she went mute in order to open her eyes widely and bigger than usual at the high ceilings and tacky decorations. "I… Sebastian and I switched places," Marley eventually answered as they dropped their luggage at the entrance and Puckerman led them to a living room crowded with arcade machines, jukeboxes, guitars and banners of naked ladies on Harley-Davidsons.

Jacob, Marley, Rachel and Sam sat on one of the three large couches that were established around a polar bear rug. Obviously fake. He might have been loaded, but not that much.

Once all settled in, Rachel nodded in agreement. "So gentle of you." Even though what she was really thinking was: "poor guy doesn't stand a chance if he wants to make a move on Blaine." But the really interesting thing happening under that roof was far from Berry's thoughts and already being covered by JBI, microphone in hand.

What Jacob Ben Israel was writing about was no more, no less than a cock-off between the host and the Trouty Stripper. Cock-off is a term suggested by the same Noah Puckerman in an interview of the 'behind the scenes' extra footage of the Jewfro piece. Again, the sexual diagnosis is to be determined.

Back to the topic, once they had chilled out after the trip watching some TV and discussing the number of the day to come (mostly the girls), Puck and Sam had a little sidebar conversation in the drinking kitchen, a secondary kitchen Puckerman 'invented' for all the alcoholic purposes of his day-by-day, including a bath to cook his own and insalubrious booze. Obviously, JBI got his microphone and camera slammed in his face when he tried to record the rendezvous, but I, as an omniscient narrator, can tell you everything about it. Suck it, creepo.

"Babe, we gotta talk," Puck started with a joking tone of voice.

Sam covered his face and faked a pout. "You gonna dump me?! You don't get to break up with me! I do! This is over!"

They both laughed for a moment, getting rid of the obvious tension. They also knew what they had to talk about. It was as if the blonde and evil discussion topic was right there, pouring herself a Dry Pucktini with the consequent trip to the ER.

"Okay, won't beat around Mr. Bush," Puck started with one of his unconscious misspellings, though this time his interlocutor had no linguistic resources to correct his mistake. "You and Quinn. Is it serious?"

Sam rubbed the back of his neck. "I… I don't know. We kind of hit it off again when you guys came back for the Brad thing. You and she were…"

"Yeah, yeah, I know we weren… We are not together. But… dude, you are my bro and I want to do this right. You know, like the gentlemen you and I are," Puckerman said as he picked his nose and threw it in the air with two fingers. "Just tell me with total confidence. Bro to bro. Brother to brother. You love her?"

Noah Puckerman did a shit-ton of stuff wrong in the past. He knocked up the girl of his best friend, lost his life-long bro over a chick twice and fucked stuff up as many times in his life as possible. But that was enough. He had an "empire" (let's leave it at 'pretty profitable SME') in the pool-cleaning industry in one of the most important cities in the world by the age of 19. He was not a kid anymore. He was a man, and that's how men work out their problems: by asking their friend politely if they are up for a fight over the craziest bitch ever.

"Do you?" Puck inquired once more at Sam's lack of answer.

Unexpectedly, the boy who was forced to grow up too soon was speechless after that maturity outburst. "We talked about going to Mr. Shue and Mrs. Pillsbury's wedding together."

Puck started wandering up and down his kitchen. "Dude, just answer. It's okay. I'm your bro. We tell each other everything. Everything. And if you love her... Trust me, there's no one who would understand you any better." He chuckled.

And Sam chuckled back. "I can't say that I have completely moved on from her."

"But Mercedes?" Puck interrupted the blond.

Sam shrugged. "I don't know. Sometimes I lost my head about her, sometimes I could see clearly that she was just an attempt to forget Quinn."

Puck sighed. "But you couldn't."

"Never could."

Now Puck had the answer he wanted. Sam Evans had never completely moved on from Quinn Fabray. That was it.

"Do you love her then?"

"I guess I have strong feelings, but can't say…" Then Sam bit his lip. He bit his lip as he recalled prom night and how he literally told Quinn he loved her after they kissed, though having Puckerman attending the event too made him want to draw the feeling back into the past.

"Say it."

"I love her."

Puck smiled, though there was a feeling burning inside his chest, and it wasn't any kind of ethylic intoxication. "Thank you for your honesty."

"Can I ask about your feelings?" Sam leaned on the counter and looked up at the ceiling.

"Do you really need to ask?"

They laughed together once again. "I guess I don't," Sam replied. "But I do need to ask what we are going to do, because if you love her and I love her and we are playing civil here…"

"…I cannot punch you till you go back to Kentucky." Puck finished Sam's sentence, laughing weakly and lacking aim to make fun of it. "I don't know what to do."

* * *

Cooper Anderson's place was built upon the money he earned with four advertisements and a tragic death due to medical negligence in the pilot of a TV drama that wasn't inspired by Grey's Anatomy at all, as its writers claim. Anyhow, the blue-eyed Anderson made an investment in the property market big enough to fit four losers and a Sue Sylvester.

"I have three beds and there's an inflatable mattress and a couch bed, so Blaine sleeps with me and that way I can guarantee that there's no teenage intercourse of any kind under my roof. Nothing against it, it's just I know too well how messy it can get, and I'm not talking about the consequences," Cooper announced as they walked into the two-store beachside house.

"Am I Uncle Blaine?!" the small captain of the New Directions asked shocked.

Cooper chuckled and gave his baby brother an eyeroll. "Just too many sets of sheets ruined and…"

Blaine ran up to the master room, performing one of his many solos in his head. "Okay, don't need to hear no more."

"Poor kid always asked if we had got him a pet the morning after bringing a girl home," Cooper joked and laughed along with Rory, Sugar and Sue. Sebastian had gone upstairs with Blaine to be the first one to pick a room. Not with the purpose of having a deep meaningful conversation with the little ex Warbler. No, sir. Not at all.

Insert ironic chuckle here.

Sebastian closed the door of the master bedroom after him. He found Blaine unpacking on the bed and examining the ceiling mirror with a gesture on his face that could be classified as an undetermined point between disgust and curiosity about the possibilities that invention could bring to a night of pleasure. "I like your brother. Has quite a taste."

"Yeah. Sometimes I…" Something stopped his reflection.

"What is it? Finish the sentence," Sebastian asked intrigued.

"I was going to say that sometimes I wish I were straight because I would have quite a mentor, but…" There was sadness in his words.

"But you kind of are, right?" And also in Sebastian's reply. He moved to sit on the bed as Blaine put the suitcase on the floor. "There's something I need to get out of my chest and since this is one of those scarce moments when I am blunt in a non sarcastic way, I'd like you to listen carefully and think about it afterwards because I won't be able to stay in the same room as you for the night."

Blaine knew perfectly what was about to take place in his brother's room. And he hated himself for it.

Sebastian took the deepest of breaths and began. "I don't buy that you are straight. Not for a moment. And I haven't thought that you are any less than gay. Ever. I didn't believe that you were really into Marley and I truly don't think that you actually like Rachel, because I know what we did and I know you like cock. That's it." He made a pause to catch his breath. "And I can tell that Rachel's only that thing Marvelous Blaine Anderson never managed to get. She's unreachable and there's a psychological principle that supports the idea of you desiring everything you cannot have. It's normal and it's treatable, but the first thing you have to do is accept that you ar…"

"Rachel and I had sex."

The air froze in the room. In fact, the ceiling mirror seemed to frost to Sebastian. Frost, break and tear his skin off. He couldn't breathe. Something was compressing his chest to the point where he thought he was about to throw up.

"You can't tell anyone because I'm not proud of it and it would complicate things too much. I know you don't owe me anything and that I'll probably regret having told you this, but you have to know that I am not as gay as you think I am."

Blaine's words were soft but severe at the same time. He wanted to make his point clear and leave no place for misunderstandings. And, more importantly, he didn't want to hurt Sebastian. He knew what it felt like to have your heart torn out. There was no need to kick the man on the floor with stuff like 'and you nailed Santana, so shut the fuck off, you cynical bastard.'

Sebastian fled the room in a flash so Blaine didn't see him cry. Because he was crying. The heartless male bitch of the year was crying his way to a bathroom he could lock himself in.

Yes, Blaine Anderson hated it so much when he had to break someone's heart. Because that's the worst thing you can do when two people are alone in an empty bedroom.

Anyhow, Blaine got distracted from his remorse by a phone call. All the buzzing and the unknown number on the screen of his cell awoke him and made him even nervous. "Who is this?" Blaine asked once he picked the call.

He listened to the voice on the phone in an absolute stupor. He nodded and nodded till he realized the caller couldn't see him nodding so he replied with a dumbfounded attempt of a 'yes'. In fact, he was so freaked out by the unexpected call that he lost all sense of time for a couple minutes, until his brother came into the room.

"Everything alright, Squirt?" he asked when he found his brother standing with his eyes staring into emptiness.

"I got to be tomorrow morning in New York. They want me to do another audition for NYADA."


	23. All at stake

**23. All at stake**

He touched down few minutes after eight in the morning that Saturday. New York City opened his gates for Blaine Anderson once again, though this time he wasn't there to satisfy his insatiable need of Berry.

Wait a moment. Actually, he sort of was.

As he walked down the terminal at JFK, he thought about it. In a way, if he managed to nail that audition, he would be next to Rachel for the next four years. But if not… what would become of Blaine Anderson if he didn't get into NYADA? He had no back-up plan and, most definitely, no friends the moment they found out that he had already been as next to Rachel as physically possible, you know what I mean.

He carried no suitcase. No baggage to claim at that damn conveyor. He just hurried to the entrance with his hands in the pockets of his tight red jeans. He had pitted out his black polo shirt as his feet rushed down the terminal. And they stopped dead when he saw who was waiting for him with the engine of a car running.

Finn Hudson honked the horn and made the vehicle roar to take the little warbler to NYADA, who wasn't definitely expecting the tall boy to do him a favor like that. Or a favor at all.

Blaine got into the passenger seat and said his awkwardest 'hey'.

"Sup, man? Nervous?" That was the only reply Finn thought of as he revved the engine. In his head, he was feeling as uncomfortable as his petit 'nemesis'. What was he thinking when he accepted to take Blaine to the school?

The night before, the auditioner made a call a couple minutes after he was summoned to the second round of musical trial. He only needed thirty seconds to leap off Nationals, but it took him a little longer to decide who he should call for a favor in The City. He thought of Jesse first. He had had him plenty in his head the past few weeks. But he felt wrong about asking a guy he actually barely knew a favor. Then Santana. But he knew he wouldn't be able to stand the pressure of both the bitch's judging of personal matters plus the tension of the audition. So he finally picked his phone and dialed Kurt's number.

"I… I thought Kurt was going to drive me down to NYADA. Is he alright?" Blaine didn't give a crap (in a way. You know what I mean again) about Kurt's condition in that moment. He just wanted a detailed, reasonable and logic answer to why he was sitting in Finn's car out of the millions and millions of cars in the whole continent.

Blaine and Finn's relation wasn't such a bad one as to make Blaine prefer a barefoot walk to the school instead, but things had been weird between them for the past months. Finn knew Blaine was into his girl, no matter how long it had been since the kiss he was aware of. I repeat: the only beyond-friendship contact they had ever shared.

Finn Hudson did have a rule about honesty: never lie. Never. And the same pathological goodness was applicable to Blaine. Ohio air, maybe. Finn was conscious of a kiss and some flirting in the past maybe; besides the hysterical sexual tension between Rachel and Blaine every weekend he crashed at their place. He preferred not to know what had happened the past week in Lima. But what he definitely didn't know about was the portion of height-reduced sex the two solo-singing record-holders of New Directions had established during prom night.

Blaine wasn't lying, at least as long as Finn didn't ask: 'hey, midget, have you fucked my girl?' In fact, that question belonged to a very small region of the spectrum of conversational topics that might occur in that car before the reaudition of his life. He had prepared answers that could save him from a justified punch in the guts, adapted to every single possible mood and situation of Mr. Hudson within the aforementioned spectrum. From a 'shut it, biatch, cos she told me the fake break-up ain't that fake' dressed as a prop of The Wire to an 'I am sorry, dude, I thought you two had broken up for real and it was my mistake.'

The second extreme of Blaine's repertoire is not as worthy of analysis as the first one, in which he thought as himself as some kind of Brooklyn gangster incorporating the words 'nigga' and 'mothafucka' into every single sentence. Maybe because he admired the balls of the depressed streets of the 90s. Maybe because Santa hadn't brought him a pair for the past 16 Christmases. (Or because he had left them inside of Berry that night. Sorry, I know it's a totally unrequested pun, but I literally needed to write it down. Too good to let it go down my stream of writing, as you'll agree.)

"Yeah, yeah, he's alright. He fell asleep. And you know he can't go out without getting all dolled up."

Blaine nodded. Hell if he knew about morning routines and the damn 72 minutes on average Kurt needed to get ready every day. But deep inside his heart, the boy knew he wouldn't ever forgive Kurt for the worst car ride of his life. "And Santana?" he replied kind of desperately to make small talk and get a reason to hate her as well.

"Kurt told me she didn't sleep at home last night." Finn chuckled. "So I am the best thing you get as much as you hate me. Sorry."

"I don't hate you." Blaine blushed. Yep, making the ride even weirder. Round of applause for the little guy.

Finn kept on laughing. "Dude, I know you don't hate me. I was kidding." He patted Blaine's shoulder. A shoulder that, along with the rest of his body, was sweating and ruining the seats of the car. God bless the guilt and the friendly and honest people that by being amicable feed that guilt to unexplored levels.

"Yeah, yeah…" Blaine mumbled. It was kind of miraculous that he didn't chew his tongue off.

A couple miles in silence preceded the next attempt to clear the technically unexplainable tension. "So… what about Nationals? What's gonna happen?" It was not a secret that Finn cared about the New Directions getting another national trophy ten times more than about Blaine's audition. First things first, and priorities are priorities. "Are they still performing?" 'They', as if Blaine was not a part of the group. As if he didn't belong there.

And, of course, the boy got the implied meaning of the question. "Yes, my brother is filling in for me."

Though it was far from his first concern after the call from NYADA, Blaine had to do something for the club he was captain of. He walked downstairs to tell Mrs. Sylvester about his decision and after phoning Schuester, they finally resorted to Cooper as his replacement. It wasn't a consensual idea, especially knowing that they could also turn to Puck or Mercedes, who already had experience with winning championships and were more familiarized with the kids, but Sue's still-not-stabilized hormones took control of the situation and handled it her way, alleging Blaine's older brother was the new monarchic heir, which is basically a nonsense, but this is Sue Sylvester craving for some Cooper Anderson singing and she shall have it, or that's how Sue sees it.

"Your brother?" Finn frowned. "Is that even legal? I mean… besides the age and that he hasn't ever been a student at McKinley."

"He's going to say he's mem" Blaine replied with an eyeroll.

"You guys know that the organization ask for photocopies of our IDs for the inscription, right? And…"

"Yes." Blaine nodded. "And he's spent half the night threatening me with a year-long headlock if all the gelling leaves him bald."

"And the height difference, and the color of the eyes, and the…"

"Yes," Blaine shut up Finn again, roughly. "We all know one of us has to be adopted because I wish I had a pinch of his DNA in me."

Finn chuckled, paying no mind to Blaine's tiredness of the usual 'your-brother-is-so-perfect' talk he had known all his life. "Look on the bright side: if you're adopted, it's okay that you get on him." He noticed that Blaine didn't find that amusing at all. "Because… he's… hot and… you know…"

"First of all, that's gross. And second, Cooper's not gay."

"As if that was a solid argument anymore."

Finn Hudson was a good guy. Most definitely renowned for his endless kindness and loving. But that was a thorn he had had inside his chest for a long time and taking it out to shove it right through Blaine's loins as if Buffy was slaying a vampire felt just like a prime instinct.

They fell silent for the rest of the drive. Blaine felt offended by the comment. Finn felt kind of bad about it, but it felt incomparably better. He tried to put on a slight smirk more than once, but he made it not to push Blaine any further.

"Thanks for the ride," Blaine said ten minutes later, once they had arrived at the Academy. "See ya."

Finn noticed how Blaine didn't leave him a chance to accompany him to the audition when he got off the car fast as a bolt. He raised his eyebrows and chuckled, with a superiority complex running through his veins. Finn knew he had done well that morning. He carried out an unpleasant task he didn't ask for and controlled his urges to blurt everything he wanted to say to Blaine in his face. So he gave himself a fulfilled smiled in the rear-view mirror and drove tp the home he still shared with the love of his life.

* * *

Kurt Hummel was sitting in the first row of chairs of the Round Room. He was perplexed. Blinking as if he wanted to make his contacts pop out of his eyes. He had just witnessed the audition of the other potential 20th new NYADA student, a boy from the Upper East Side whose solo rendition of 'El Tango de Roxanne' made him tear up.

"I hope your boy is up to the expectations, because this one's name was discussed a lot during selection week," Cassandra July, who was sitting next to Kurt, told him.

Kurt was shaken up by the teacher's note. He was too astonished by the auditioner to pay any heed to the queen bitch of the faculty. "He… he'll be. He is. He always is." Except when it comes to corresponding Hummel's love. Then expectations are recommended to be from zero to none.

"Blaine Anderson," Carmen Tibideaux called. She was sitting on an armchair placed in the aisle between the rows of chairs for the scarce audience of that day. Besides Kurt and Cassie, the only attendants were a bunch of friends of the Roxanne Guy, two cleaning ladies and the janitor. "Blaine Anderson," the lady repeated.

Cassie chuckled at Kurt as he turned even whiter. He leaned in to talk to the director of the school. "He is on his way. He had to fly from L.A. tonight and…"

"Are you his attorney, Mr. Hummel?" Tibideaux didn't let Kurt finish his defense, so he put his head down, embarrassed as usual by the implacable severity of that woman. 'Tough love' was a concept too small for Madame Tibideaux' temper to fit. "Blaine Anderson."

For Carmen Tibideaux, you only got three calls and eight bars. Sixteen if you are Rachel Berry and you blow 'Don't Rain On My Parade', but there was neither Berry nor those drums were playing, so she closed her folder, capped his pen and stood up from his chair.

"Well, I guess we'll never know." Cassandra stood up as well, whirled her baton a couple times and headed out.

Or tried to.

A short boy literally ran into her, almost making her fall down. Blaine didn't pair too much attention to the woman he had stomped, just long enough to help her get steady on her feet.

He met Carmen Tibideaux by the middle of the aisle, surrounded by the cheerful celebration of Roxanne Guy's friends. "Mrs. Tibideaux, so sorry to be late…" he said, totally out of breath.

"Mr. Anderson, I guess." Her eyebrows perked up, her mood far from forgiving. "You are late for sure, don't know if sorry."

Blaine wasn't ready for such an unwelcoming reply. He got blocked. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know if he should keep apologizing all the way to the stage or to start blaming his luck for the wonderful morning he was having. "Shall I begin?" he asked coyly.

"Of course you shall not. Good morning, Mr. Anderson."

Those were the only words he got before Carmen Tibideaux walked around him and resumed her way out of the room.

For a moment, Blaine froze. That was it. He was out. He saw the clapping of Roxanne's personal cheerleading team in slow motion and thought he was deaf when he stopped listening to their celebration. He looked up, where Kurt was standing. He saw him walking towards him. In slow motion as well. His brain was too busy processing that he had just lost his only chance to fulfill his dream. Full sensory perception was too much to ask for.

He blinked and suddenly Kurt was right in front of his face. His ex was trying to make eye contact with him, but there was nothing to reach inside of Blaine Anderson in that moment. Anyhow, for some random reason, he read the lips he once kissed everyday once. He read a clear 'Do it. For God's sake, do it' in those pink lips. And he just complied. Acapella.

_[The winner takes it all - Abba]_

_Blaine:  
I don't wanna talk_

It was Kurt who turned the boy around so he projected his voice along Tibideaux' way. In other words, for her to see the empty face emitting surprisingly tuned sounds.

_Blaine:  
about things we've gone through.  
Though it's hurting me,  
now it's history._

The piano man joined him as the rest of the auditorium went silent and sat down. Everyone except the director of the school, who remained still, holding the doorknob, with her back on Blaine.

_Blaine:  
I've played all my cards,  
and that's what you've done too.  
Nothing more to say.  
No more ace to play._

_The winner takes it all._

And she finally turned around. And Blaine came back to life, ready to give the solo of his life. And that's a lot to say.

_Blaine:  
The loser standing small.  
Beside the victory,  
that's her destiny._

He walked backwards to the stage/carpet, smiling at Kurt and noticing he was holding his phone out. He noticed as well the name displayed on the screen. And he smiled. And thought of the real reason that made the notes crawl up his throat, as if she was sitting right there.

_Rachel:  
I was in your arms  
thinking I belonged there.  
I figured it made sense  
building me a fence._

_Blaine and Rachel:  
Building me a home.  
Thinking I'd be strong there.  
But I was a fool.  
Playing by the rules._

He felt the song, he clenched his fists and gave his best. He gave his all through the music and poured out his soul with every note…

_Blaine:  
The gods may throw the dice.  
Their minds as cold as ice.  
And someone way down here  
loses someone dear._

…and managed to bring back all the feelings and emotions he had been repressing inside of him. This time for the better, instead of in a mirror.

_Blaine and Finn:  
The winner takes it all._

_Finn:  
The loser has to fall. _

_Blaine:  
It's simple and it's plain._

_Rachel:  
Why should I complain?_

_Finn:  
But tell me does he kiss  
like I used to kiss you?  
Does it feel the same  
when he calls your name? _

_Finn and Rachel:  
Somewhere deep inside  
you must know I miss you._

_Blaine and Rachel:  
But what can I say?  
Rules must be obeyed._

A tear ran down Blaine's face. He felt himself glowing. Floating when he saw an audience in awe, unlike during his depressing first audition.

_Blaine:  
The judges will decide  
the likes of me abide.  
Spectators of the show,  
always staying low._

_Blaine, Finn and Rachel:  
The game is on again.  
A lover or a friend.  
A big thing or a small,  
the winner takes it all._

With Finn and Rachel standing behind him. With Kurt granting him his warmest smile. And finally with the teachers' respect in his pocket, he took a deep breath and enjoyed the spotlight.

_Blaine:  
I don't wanna talk…_

_Rachel:  
if it makes you feel sad._

_Finn:  
And I understand  
you've come to shake my hand._

_Blaine:  
I apologize  
if it makes you feel bad  
seeing me so tense.  
No self-confidence._

_Rachel:  
But you see…_

_Blaine, Finn and Rachel:  
The winner takes it all!  
The winner takes it all!_


	24. The last minute

**24. The last minute**

"Seriously, what were you thinking, Schuester?"

Dustin Goolsby was leaning on the wall of the hallway that connected all the dressing rooms of the diverse choirs competing that day. He was looking at Cooper Anderson from head to toe, who was dressed in a too-small grey cardigan he borrowed from his baby brother, along with the five ounces of raspberry hair gel that kept his hair fixed down to his scalp.

Will and Sue stood by either side of the actor, one of them constantly fixing the man's bowtie as an excuse to lay her hands on his chest obscenely, while the other tried his best to find a decent argument on why suddenly senior Blaine Anderson looked as a thirty-something golden bachelor.

The re-hired coach of Vocal Adrenaline kept chuckling at Cooper's short clothing. "No, seriously, tell me, you really thought you could fool anyone? This guy is older than me."

"Listen to me," Sue snapped, stepping forward for her… 'crush' (can Sue Sylvester have a crush?). "This little fella here has gone through a bigger amount of life-disturbing troubles you can even imagine. If he told you the story of his life, you'd push that headset of yours so deep into your brain so you couldn't listen to any more disgraces. We are thankful he hasn't picked suicide with this physical detriment."

"That's quite offensive, Sue," Cooper replied, confused about how he should react.

"So you are a seventeen year old that could go successfully through three adoption processes without being even asked for an ID," Goolsby laughed loudly. "Totally believable." He turned to Will before he rolled his blue eyes. "If you go on stage, I'm reporting this."

"Adoption is a very sensitive topic to my family, so please drop that," Cooper added as the teachers nodded and Tina Cohen-Chang shouted a proud 'Knew that!' and claimed the thirty bucks she had bet on Blaine being adopted.

Will shook his head. Though he was more interested in the morbidity of the truth of the Anderson family, his duty was to defend his club tooth and claw. "Can you even conceive the possibility of singing against us without trying to cheat us out of a contest?"

"I am not the one cheating today, Schuester. Besides, either you say this dude is in his forties or I'll sue you for allowing a flagrant sexual harassment on a student." He cocked his head towards Sue, whose hands couldn't literally be off Cooper's body.

"He consents," Sue said as Cooper nodded. An ego too big for him to refuse such worshipping.

Goolsby left when the lights flickered. The sign that Vocal Adrenaline was about to perform. "You are pathetic," he said as his goodbye, and 'Last Dance' began to echo through the theater.

* * *

New Directions' dressing room was quieter than it should be. Cooper, Sue and Will found the other eleven performers relaxed, getting into their costumes. Black shirts and pants and shiny silver ties for the boys; loose silver dresses with black bands around the waist for the girls.

As the actor changed clothes and the girls and gay male sector of the club stared at his stripping down, Will broke the news of the threat Dustin Goolsby had just made, though barely anybody listened to him. "…So basically we have to choose between not performing or performing and being disqualified the moment we finish singing."

Artie was the one to make the call, basically because everybody else was too busy devouring Cooper Anderson with their eyes and he was the straightest authority of the whole club. The reasons why the rest of the alleged not-gay boys were examining Coop's abs as well are to be determined. But you know, their mothers' blood will curdle if they'd hear their babies' queer for all that jazz. "I say we don't quit after all we've worked for this moment. It's been a very long yea…"

The rolling boy shut up when he noticed nobody was actually paying any heed to his words. He gave all his friends an eyeroll and waited till Cooper finished dressing up to resume his statement. "We've been stolen our setlist, lost our leaders, written songs a couple hours prior to the curtain call and faced this bastards a hundred times. Shame on you if the cripple is the only one not giving up."

Tina stepped out of the crowd that was gathered around Blaine's brother. "Who said we were withdrawing? I mean, the girls' number is safe, we have Berry and me to defend our glory." She raised her hand as Rachel joined her with a high five.

"I didn't cross the country just to sleep under the same roof as Jacob Ben Israel," Rachel said with a chuckle.

"You are not going to ruin my first lead in a competition, no, sers." Sugar walked back sassily to a mirror to finish her makeup. "I can forgive you for kicking me out of the girls' number because I am a soul full of love, but a lot of disgraces might happen if I don't get my two verses today."

"And my head has been just bullet-proofed, so either I sing something or I go as a crash-test dummy," Cooper added, wrapping his arms around both Rachel and Tina's waists.

"Handsome, gentle, witty, handsome and a beast in bed, he has it all," Sue said, leaning on Will and sighing as the other thirteen pairs of eyes got fixed on her in absolute shock. I bet yours too. Flashback required.

* * *

It was around one A.M. when the sleep of the Anderbros was interrupted. Blaine was curled up on one side of the bed as Cooper hoarded the rest of the space. The little Warbler was too afraid of Cooper mistaking him for one of his night preys unconsciously, so he kept his goods well protected… until, in the darkness of the room, a hand started stroking his hair and whispering in his ear the following words: "the panther wants lion for dinner."

Blaine's eyes opened wide, just like his mouth when he shouted his lungs out for help. By the moment his brother turned the lights on, Sue had already slipped into the bed and had her hands inside Blaine's pajama shirt. "There has been a terrible confusion. My apologies." And so the panther left the room, and the Anderson brothers needed two hours to fall asleep again.

* * *

"I don't think the scream we heard was exactly a moan of pleasure," Rory said, pulling everybody out of their stupefaction.

"Lions in this language roar different than in the place you come from," Sue replied, outraged by the lack of credibility she was attributed.

Cooper planted a hand on Sue's shoulder, keeping his arm fully extended for a safe distance. "You are most sweet, Sue, but you and I," he shook his index finger, "can't be. Sorry."

And, as you might imagine, there's nothing like an O'Fortuna outburst and some item-smashing and death threats before a competition to clear all possible nerves.

* * *

The stage of the Angeleno theater had two big stairways that led to an upper platform, without any balustrade or bar for Rachel Berry and Tina Cohen-Chang to get a grip onto the minute before they started their opening number.

The curtain was still drawn and just a weak dim red light allowed Rachel to see how shaky her mentee was. She walked the distance between them cautiously so that her heels wouldn't betray her to hold Tina's hands. "You get to sing Barbra with me. You get to lead this group to another triumph as you did with yourself the other day at NYADA. You know how to do this."

Tina's hands steadied with one deep breath and a strong squeeze to Rachel's. "I am Tina Cohen-…"

"We are Tina Cohen-Chang and Rachel Barbra Berry," she interrupted with her widest smile. "And we are going to star in a viral video that will make every single freshman fear us next year."

And with that, the audience burst into applause as the curtain was raised. Rachel went back quickly to her position and Tina returned the smile before the music started playing and a yellow spotlight blinded her. "I made it," she whispered to herself, and puffed out her chest.

_[No more tears (Enough is enough) - Barbra Streisand]_

_Rachel:  
Uh… _

_Tina:  
Uh…  
It's raining, it's pouring.  
My love life is boring me to tears  
after all these years._

_Rachel with Tina harmonizing:  
No sunshine, no moonlight,  
no stardust, no sign of romance._

_Tina:  
We don't stand a chance._

_Rachel:  
I always dreamed I'd find the perfect lover,  
but he turned out to be like every other man._

_Rachel with Tina:  
Our love… Our love._

_Tina:  
Raining. (Rachel: Raining)  
Pouring. (Rachel: Pouring)  
There's nothing left for us here. (Rachel: Uh…)_

_Rachel and Tina:  
And we won't waste another... _

_Tina:  
tear._

Lights went dimmer on them as Brittany and Marley entered the stage, each one from different sides so they met in the middle below the stairs Rachel and Tina had started walking down.

_Brittany:  
Ah… yeah._

_If you've had enough,_  
_don't put up with his stuff,_  
_don't you do it._

_Marley:  
Now, if you've had your fill,  
get the check, pay the bill,  
you can do it._

The four of them formed a spaced line on stage. One spotlight shining right on each one of their figures.

_Tina:  
Tell him to just get out._

_Rachel:  
Nothing left to talk about._

_Brittany:  
Pack his raincoat._

_Marley:  
Show him out. _

_Brittany, Marley, Rachel and Tina:  
Just look him in the eye and simply shout._

_Marley and Rachel:  
Enough is enough. (Brittany and Tina: Is enough)  
I can't go on, I can't go on._

_Brittany, Marley, Rachel and Tina:  
No more, no!_

_Marley and Rachel:  
Enough is enough. (Brittany and Tina: Is enough)  
I want him out, I want him out…_

_Brittany, Marley, Rachel and Tina:  
that door now!_

_Brittany:  
I always dreamed to find the perfect lover, (Rachel: Uh)_

_Tina:  
but he turned out to be like every other man._

_Brittany:  
Our love. (Rachel: I had no choice from the start)_

_Marley:  
Our love. _

_Tina:  
Our love. (Rachel: I've got to listen to my heart)_

_Brittany and Tina:  
Our love. _

_Brittany, Marley and Tina:  
Our love! (Rachel: Tearing us apart)_

_Marley and Rachel:  
Enough is enough. (Brittany and Tina: Is enough)  
I can't go on, I can't go on._

_Brittany, Marley, Rachel and Tina:  
No more, no!_

_Marley and Rachel:_  
_Enough is enough. (Brittany and Tina: Is enough)_  
_I want him out, I want him out…_

_Brittany, Marley, Rachel and Tina:  
that door now!_

The four of them started climbing the stairs back, dancing and swirling along the steps on their way up.

_Rachel:  
Goodbye, mister._

_Marley:  
Goodbye, goodbye, mister._

Marley and Rachel shared another high-five, maybe this one with a common consignee on the envelope.

_Tina:  
Goodbye, sugar._

_Brittany, Marley, Rachel and Tina:  
No more tears!_

The stage went dark. The blackness only disrupted by flashes of lights coming from behind the staircase, exposing the silhouettes of the singers dancing atop.

_Brittany:  
No more tears._

_Marley:  
No more tears._

_Brittany and Marley:  
Enough is enough.  
Is enough.  
Is enough.  
Is enough.  
Is enough. (Rachel: I've had it)  
Is enough. (Tina: No more tears)  
Is enough.  
Is enough.  
Is enough. (Rachel: I've had it)  
Is enough.  
Is enough. (Rachel: You've had it)  
Is enough. (Tina: No more tears)  
Is enough. (Rachel: He's had it)  
Is enough.  
Is enough.  
Is enough. (Rachel and Tina: No more tears)  
Is enough.  
Is enough.  
Is enough.  
Is enough.  
Is enough.  
Is enough.  
Is enough.  
Is enough. _

_Brittany, Marley, Rachel and Tina:  
Is enough.  
Is enough.  
Is enough.  
Is enough.  
Is enough.  
Is enough.  
Is enough.  
Is enough.  
Is enough!_

That was the first standing ovation for the New Directions for that morning. All the lights on them, and the four ladies took their bows before they exited through the doors on both sides of the platform. Tina and Marley went through the right door, while Brittany and Rachel celebrated on their way to the left one, with the diva giving the blonde some incredibly constructive feedback on how surprisingly up to Barbra's level Brittany had been.

"I agree. You gave me goosebumps," a not so strange voice spoke right when they stepped into the backstage. "Though enough is never enough. At least for me." Santana granted Brittany a sweet coy smile as she walked into the darkness of the platform.

_[The show must go on - Queen]_

The ovation faded away as Santana Lopez got progressively illuminated, filling the shoes (as she might say) Frodo lost somewhere around the Shire. "Oh my God, I'm stealing a solo from Blaine Anderson. Bitches better record this," she said loud enough for Brittany to give a chuckle weakly from backstage, trying her best to understand why Santana was there.

_Santana:  
Empty spaces.  
What are we living for?  
Abandoned places.  
I guess we know the score.  
On and on.  
Does anybody know what we are looking for? _

_Another hero.  
Another mindless crime.  
Behind the curtain,  
in the pantomime.  
Hold the line.  
Does anybody want to take it anymore?_

The lights turned an intense red as she rocked the chorus on her slow way down.

_Santana:  
The show must go on!  
The show must go on!  
Yeah…  
Inside my heart is breaking.  
My make-up may be flaking  
but my smile still stays on._

One by one, the rest of the New Directions boys except for Jacob started showing up from behind the staircase, breaking the thin layer of mist a fog machine had put upon the stage floor.

_Sam:  
Whatever happens,  
I'll leave it all to chance. _

_Sebastian:  
Another heartache.  
Another failed romance. _

_Rory:  
On and on.  
Does anybody know what we are living for? _

_Artie with the New Directions Boys and Santana backing up:  
I guess I'm learning.  
I must be warmer now.  
I'll soon be turning  
'round the corner now.  
Outside the dawn is breaking  
but inside in the dark I'm aching to be free. _

_Artie, Joe, Rory, Sam, Santana and Sebastian:  
The show must go on!  
The show must go on!_

_Joe:  
Yeah!  
Uh, inside my heart is breaking.  
My make-up may be flaking  
but my smile still stays on._

Santana stepped forward, far from the boys, letting herself enjoy the vertigo of the stage once again.

_Santana:  
Yeah!  
Oh! Oh! _

_Sam:  
My soul is painted like the wings of butterflies._

_Sam and Sebastian:  
Fairytales of yesterday will grow but never die._

The two of them joined the diva bitch on the edge of the stage, in that sort of improvised 'boys' number.

_Sam, Santana and Sebastian:  
I can fly, my friends!_

_Artie, Joe, Rory, Sam, Santana and Sebastian:  
The show must go on! (Artie: Yeah!)  
The show must go on!_

Joe, Rory, Sam and Sebastian formed up on the steps and left the two original Newdirectioners lead the finale of the number, holding hands as they sang their guts out.

_Artie:  
I'll face it with a grin.  
I'm never giving in.  
On with the show!_

_Santana:  
Uh, I'll top the bill.  
I'll overkill.  
I have to find the will to carry on. _

_Artie, Joe, Rory, Sam, Santana and Sebastian:  
On with the…  
On with the…_

_Artie and Santana:  
Show! _

_Joe, Rory, Sam and Sebastian:  
The show must go on..._

"Okay, you better tell me where the hell I have to stand and pray that I don't forget the lyrics, because impromptu stuff was never my thing," Santana said to the boys as the second ovation covered her freaked voice.

Sebastian took her up to the step Blaine was supposed to be on and smiled, glad to have a friend and fellow bitch instead of the guy who broke his heart. He gave her a complicit wink. A second-long gesture filled with a very meaningful message.

They got in position once the girls and the Jewfro had joined them. Tina and Artie in the vanguard at stage level. Three steps above: Brittany, Sam, Sebastian and Sugar. Six steps above the floor: Jacob, Joe, Marley and Rory. And crowning the staircase, Rachel and Santana.

"There will be a day when you show up prior notice, won't there?" Rachel asked with a soft laugh. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm the last minute lifesaver. Why do you always want to be the one to make these people win something, Berry? I can get them trophies too," Santana replied sourly.

Rachel frowned at the harshness of her friend. "Is everything…?"

"We'll talk later."

Rachel erased the frown from her forehead. She knew nothing was alright. Something was wrong. A shiver ran down her spine.

_[Cosmic love - Florence + The Machine]_

_Tina:  
A falling star  
fell from your heart  
and landed in my eyes._

_Artie:  
I screamed aloud  
as it tore through them,  
and now it's left me blind._

_Artie and Tina with the New Directions:  
The stars, the moon,  
they have all been blown out. _

_Artie and Tina:  
You left me in the dark._

_Artie and Tina with the New Directions:  
No dawn, no day.  
I'm always in this twilight. _

_Artie and Tina:  
In the shadow of your heart._

Brittany S. Pierce started her way down the stairs, singing and walking around her fellows.

_Brittany:  
And in the dark,  
I can hear your heartbeat. _

_Brittany and Santana:  
I tried to find the sound._

The unicorn turned her head up to look at Santana, not expecting her voice during her verse. She saw her up there, standing almighty as always.

_Santana:  
But then it stopped,  
and I was in the darkness, _

_Brittany and Santana:  
So darkness I became!_

_Brittany, Marley and Santana with the New Directions:  
The stars, the moon,  
they have all been blown out._

Marley joined Brittany downwards, grinning and feeling blessed because of the time she was having.

_Marley:  
You left me in the dark._

_Brittany, Marley and Santana with the New Directions:  
No dawn, no day.  
I'm always in this twilight. _

_Santana:  
In the shadow of your heart._

As they harmonized, the rest of the kids wondered why Santana was taking lines Blaine wasn't supposed to sing. They got confused. Distracted. And flunked the first part of the super choral break of the song.

_Sebastian and Sugar:  
I took the stars from my eyes,  
and then I made a map.  
And knew that somehow  
I could find my way back. _

_Sam and Sugar:  
Then I heard your heart beating,  
you were in the darkness too.  
So I stayed in the darkness with you._

And from the top of the staircase, noticing some adrift looks from her friends, Rachel, decided to take a lead she wasn't supposed to take either, knowing her voice could outsing them all.

_Rachel with the New Directions:  
The stars, the moon,  
they have all been blown out. _

_Rachel:  
You left me in the dark!_

_Rachel with the New Directions:  
No dawn, no day.  
I'm always in this twilight. _

_Rachel:  
In the shadow of your heart!_

_Rachel and Santana with the New Directions:  
The stars, the moon,  
they have all been blown out. _

_Rachel and Santana:  
You left me in the dark. (Tina: You left me in the dark!)_

_Rachel and Blaine with the New Directions:  
No dawn, no day.  
I'm always in this twilight. _

_Blaine and Rachel:  
In the shadow of your heart._

Rachel Berry saw it all clear. She hadn't breathed in enough air for the last note. Rookie mistake. But either way, she saw it all clear during the last minute of the song. She wasn't there for her friends. She was there for the person her brain wanted her to be with. Her brain had cheated on her senses, making her believe for a moment Blaine was the one atop the stair with her, stealing the thunder of the rest of the Glee Club as they were used to doing.

She saw that clear as the rest of the choir harmonized the closure of the performance. She finally opened her eyes to a truth she had been denying for too long. And for once she just wanted to run away from a stage.


	25. Aftermath

**25. Aftermath**

Kurt Hummel had his arms around Blaine Anderson's neck as he hopped off the floor. The shortest boy was still kind of in shock. He looked confusedly at Carmen Tibideaux' back for the second time that morning, but that time it was for the best.

"Did she…?" he asked his ex boyfriend completely dazzled.

Kurt's high-pitched voice didn't lower half a tone when he stopped his leaping around Blaine. "Just tell you you're in?! Yes!"

Blaine's eyes filled with tears. He had made it. He was the winner and he had taken it all. "I'm in," he kept repeating, trying to accommodate his mind to his new status of NYADA freshman. "I'm in."

Cassandra July had the deference to approach her soon-to-be student and congratulate him with a firm handshake. "I guess there's a welcome in order, Mr. Anderson."

"Th-Thank you much," he replied, honored by the unique fallen Broadway star. "I really apprecia…"

"Don't." Cassie raised her palm in front of Blaine's face to shut him up. "Don't do the whole arse licking thing. It didn't work for your boyfriend, won't make things easier for you either."

Blaine shook his head and chuckled. "Oh, no, he is not my…"

"And do the interrupting thing either," she snapped.

"Never interrupt her," Kurt whispered in his ear, as if Cassandra couldn't hear the too-late advice.

Before she returned to her duties or her Listerine drinking or whatever kept Cassandra's morning busy when she preferred not to teach her students, she dedicated a couple words to the auditioner. "You know I don't like teachers' pets or being interrupted, but there's another thing that gets me on my nerves: privileged kids. Carmen loves her last-minute talents. But I don't," she grinned mischievously. "I will make you beg her she hadn't ever granted you that special treatment." She patted Blaine's face lightly. "And congratulations."

"Is she going to make my life a hell on Earth?" Blaine asked, once they were all alone in the Round Room.

Kurt smiled at the one who was his man a long time ago. "You can bet your bowties she is."

Blaine took a deep breath and moved to sit down on one of the chairs. "Why did she call me 'your boyfriend'?" he asked, absolutely out of curiosity.

"I may have stood up for you a couple times." Kurt shrugged as he sat on the chair next to Blaine. "She might have noticed our animal chemistry…"

They laughed together. Side by side. As in the old days. "Must have been that," Blaine replied as he tried to stop his chuckling. "Thank you."

Kurt threw his head back and sighed. His gaze got lost in the dome of the auditorium. He took a second to reflect on that scene. He was all alone with the boy he loved with his all heart since the day he met him. Only a couple inches separating them and no eyes to make them feel awkward. In fact, that was the moment they had felt more comfortable since… Since it all went to waste.

He turned his head to look at Blaine. And Blaine looked back into his eyes. "So handsome," Kurt thought as he stared at Blaine's perfect skin. "So…"

His mind shut down. His boy took the lead. His hands cupped Blaine's face. His spine twisted and he leaned down. His lips touched Blaine's and for ten heavenly seconds, it was Lima that September 2011 and the love of his life had just transferred schools for him.

Kurt gave it, so he was to break the kiss as well. He opened his eyes and looked at Blaine, who was biting his lower lip, absolutely speechless. "I… I'm sorry. I… I ruined it." Kurt was afraid that he had screwed their relation after all the time they had needed to heal their friendship. He blushed, so he stood up and headed out, but Blaine held his hand in his before he could ran away.

"You haven't."

* * *

The dressing room the New Directions were assigned had a little annex bathroom. Just one toilet, one sink and a hand dryer. Not even paper. But Santana Lopez didn't need that for their purpose.

She was leaning against the sink while Brittany sat on the closed toilet. They locked the door and remained silent for a couple minutes, until Brittany broke the ice. "You were awesome," she said with her usual innocent smile.

Santana turned her head from Brittany and rolled her eyes at herself, staring at the tiled wall. "This is not the way it's supposed to be," she muttered, trying her best to hold the tears inside.

"That line… wasn't Blaine's." The blonde stood firmly on the competition topic, not desiring an open confrontation about the feelings issue.

"I just needed to sing with you once again." And the dikes of her eyes gave in. Santana leaned her head against the wall as she sobbed lightly. "I am here to fight for you, Brittany. You are my best friend, I love you, you love me… and I can't just accept that we cannot be."

Brittany stood up and wrapped her arms around the broken girl, hooking her chin over Santana's shoulder. "Then why are you crying?" She pouted as well. Too much sharing throughout her whole life not to empathize with her soul sister. "It's not like you're going to drown me into getting back together, is it?"

Santana held Brittany's hands and put a smile on her face. "You are the best," she said with her reediest voice. She missed Brittany's sense of humor. She missed Brittany's naivety. She missed Brittany's joy. She missed her caresses. The sweet lady kisses and the constant support. She missed Brittany S. Pierce, but she had no other way to say it to her.

"You… you too," Brittany responded, rubbing Santana's hands with her thumbs. "Or at least you were," she thought. "Now you tell me why you've dragged me into a bathroom to cry for no reason before I start crying too."

"Do we really need reasons to cry?"

"According to Lord Tubbington, you are a soulless bitch who sold her feelings for a discount on her boob job."

Santana laughed and finally turned to look at Brittany with red eyes. "Aren't I?"

"He likes your boobies too," Brittany whispered, pressing a finger against her lips before laughing along. "You say you are fighting for me here, but I'm actually comforting you, so…"

"I know the mistakes I've made. I know why we broke up and I know why you don't love me anymore."

"That's not…"

"Let me finish, please." Santana squeezed Brittany's hands lightly to silence her. "I love you. Always have. Always will. That's not a secret. I've not treated you well. I have not been a good girlfriend. Or not as good as you deserve."

By then, Brittany had already joined the pity party and a bright tear was running down her blushed cheeks.

"I really want to make amends with you. Prove you that I can do it right. For you." Santana dried Brittany's tears with her index finger. "For us."

"We broke up because you didn't trust me." The memory of the break-up still felt like a fist being clenched around her liver. "But you still haven't told me why you are here. Crying."

Santana took a deep breath. "Because there's a secret I should keep…"

"The kind of secret you think I can't handle?"

"The kind of secret you think I think I have to keep from the rest of the world," Santana corrected cutely. "But… you are not the rest of the world. You are the world, Brittany Pierce. You are my world and…" She got nervous. Her hands started shaking and she sort of blabbered. "And I have to stop caring about the rest of the world and just focus on you. I don't give a fuck if Rachel fucks Blaine at a prom or if the damn Legolas shoves an arrow up his tight ass. I love you and only you."

* * *

"Oh my what?!" Sugar and Tina's voices broke the silence of the dressing room. The New Directions plus Cooper, Mercedes and Puck were waiting for the other choirs to perform and, in the meantime, the gossip team of the William McKinley High School decided to kill time by eavesdropping on the Brittana in the bathroom. Their attempt to do a revival of Gossip Girl's blog Lima Edition was a total failure after the only three bombshells they featured: Lauren Zizes finally breaking the line of the 200 pounds, Blaine and Marley's relationship and a series of documentaries on the so-called Sebastian Smythe's McKinley Sex Tour, which included a report of the best places to have intercourse upon in that high-school, though most of the articles revolved around the Dalton Academy. Did you know Trent the Warbler wasn't gay? Boom. Did I leave you breathless? Neither did Gossip Tina and Gossip Sugar (a.k.a. Gossugar, a.k.a. Worst Nickname Ever).

A couple months after their ridicule project, Sugar and Tina found the breaking news that might have made their career as journalists through the door of a bathroom.

The whole group turned at them, including Brittany and Santana, who walked out of the toilet, the latter trying to fix her make-up, and her girlfriend assimilating the consummation of the prom.

The four girls looked at one another first. Santana felt that she had totally lost control of the situation for the first time after all that time trying to prevent another chaos from happening. Then her eyes turned to Rachel, who was on the other side of the dressing room discussing with Joe how Barbra would make a better goddess than any gods his dreads were devoted to.

In a matter of ten seconds, all the eyes were on the diva. "What's going on?" Rachel asked, confused; but the mixture of disappointment, guilt and rejection she found in Santana's Mexican third eye was enough for her to know what Sugar and Tina had overheard. "Okay, before you say it out loud, I'd like to say that intrusion of honor is either a sin or a very bad and punishable thing. And you have no proof of it, by the way," she told the whole group as she noticed Sugar literally biting her tongue until it bled.

"Sebastian told me," Santana said in the same plain voice tone she had spoken to Rachel before while performing.

"And Blaine told me last night," Santana's source corroborated. "Out of guilt," he pointed out.

Nobody understood anything but the six who knew the truth about prom night. They just stared at Rachel. "What are you talking about?" Will finally asked.

"You don't look like feeling any remorse, Berry," Sebastian said, perking an eyebrow and chuckling weakly. In fact, the image of the boy he loved having a night of school love with Rachel Berry stung his heart enough to make some tears rise in his eyes. Between him and Rachel was only Joe, who stepped back to avoid any possible damage of the crossfire. "He looked like he was about to puke when he told me."

"Maybe it's because you are disgusting," Rachel spitted at Sebastian. That look in Rachel's eyes confirmed Santana in any doubt she could have had about the reliability of that intel.

Rachel had made a mistake by attacking Sebastian back instead of defending her own innocence. It was all the proof they needed to quit believing her.

Santana laughed and nodded on her way out of the dressing room. "You do disgust me," she said to Rachel before she stood on the threshold and turned to the whole group. "In case you were wondering, Rachel finally fucked Blaine. Last Wednesday, during prom night. A round of applause for them, because they have finally made it." She gave Rachel her best and most hurtful eyeroll. "In every way, I see."

Brittany followed suit, looking at Rachel harshly. "After all she has done for you…"

And then Rachel saw her own image in the mirror. She was blushing, but when she blinked, her face was absolutely pale. An anvil of embarrassment was hovering over her head and it had just fallen onto her back.

"Well played." Sebastian couldn't stay in that room either. He hadn't slept at all the night before after his conversation with Blaine. Twelve hours ago he had sat on Cooper's bed as Blaine unpacked, ready to make another full disclosure about his feelings. He had spent weeks, even months gathering the strength to open his heart to the little Warbler. But instead of the "You are not the only one feeling that way" he was hoping to hear, he just got his chest shredded and shitted upon.

No, picturing Rachel Berry crawling up and down Blaine's body was not something he would like to do on his sleepless night, but it seemed to him that it was going to be his personal daily routine from now on.

"Is it true?" Puck asked. When he got no response, he placed himself right in front of Rachel and repeated the question. "Is it true, Rachel? Did you cheat on Finn?"

She looked into Puck's eyes. It all came back to her once more. The fact that Noah Puckerman, the boy she had made out with three years ago to piss Finn off, was judging her for that was too much. Noah was her friend. The same way Santana was her friend. The same way Brittany was her friend. The same way half that room was friends with her. But they were all judging every single detail they were imagining in their heads about that dreadful night. "Noah…" Rachel started, but she broke down.

Puck took his arm away when she tried to get a hold of something. He left too, leaving her unprotected from the remaining disappointed eyes within that room. She stepped back clumsily, taking a grip on one of the boudoirs and sitting on it as she could. She looked around to find nothing but people far from willing to help her. Her biggest supports were either on the other side of the country or despising her somewhere in that theatre.

Mercedes was the next one to make an exit. "This is something I never expected from you, Rachel, seriously." Her words weren't as hard or hateful as the other ones before, but they hurt the same and helped her eyes to dry in even less.

Rachel looked at Will. William Schuester was usually a good person to turn to when everything went wrong. But how could she find any mercy in the one who asked Finn to be his best man. Will and Finn were like father and son. And Rachel could perfectly figure out she wouldn't be more than the condemned little whore who had just broken his firstborn's heart. "Tina…" she finally called, out of total desperation, with tears streaming down her pale cheeks. "Tina, please…" She felt like begging for forgiveness, one whimper away from falling down to her knees.

"I think you should go, Rachel." Tina was definitely the most considerate of them all. The Asian diva was looked as if she was touching a leper when she helped Rachel out of the dressing room. "Go, Rachel."

"I didn't… We had had a fight. Finn and I had had a fight. I never meant to…" Rachel ended up mumbling to a door they had closed in her face. "I…"

_[Shelter - The XX]_

_Rachel:  
I find shelter in this way.  
Under cover, hide away._

Rachel Barbra Berry had had it all. She had lived the dream in the city she felt at home, with the man she loved, with all the friends she needed.

_Rachel:  
Can you hear when I say  
I have never felt this way?_

Rachel Barbra Berry had had it all. And had lost it all. She had come back to Lima to get all her business in order, and she found herself absolutely broken in the hallway of a theater in Los Angeles.

_Rachel:  
Maybe I had said something that was wrong.  
Can I make it better with the lights turned on?  
Maybe I had said something that was wrong.  
Can I make it better with the lights turned on?_

She saw all her friends on the stage along with two other choirs. From the back of the auditorium. From afar, where they all wanted her to stay. She tried to listen to their whispering, as if she could hear what they didn't want her to hear even if she was up there with them. But the applauses for the group that placed third made that task even more impossible.

_Rachel:  
Could I be? Was I there?  
It felt so crystal in the air._

She thought of Blaine. She thought of Finn. Then she thought of how Blaine was the first one to come to her mind and that made her think of how badly she had deserved everything.

_Rachel:  
I still want to drown whenever you leave.  
Please teach me gently how to breathe._

Rachel Barbra Berry was another spectator of a show she was banned from. All she could do was watch from the distance how the president of the jury opened the envelope that determined whether the New Directions she had helped won for the second year in a row or Vocal Adrenaline claimed their throne back.

_Rachel:  
And I'll cross oceans like never before  
so you can feel the way I feel it too._

But the truth was that her whole concern was in New York City, over the boy who had probably already found out about her not-so-secret affair and the smaller one whose career next to her was at stake as her relationship with the alleged love of her life.

_Rachel:  
And I'll mirror images back at you  
so you can see the way I feel it too._

As she hurt, Blaine Anderson was hugging Kurt after they climbed down from the cab that had taken them back to the airport, with big, wide smiles on their faces. Holding hands, still trying to decide the most appropriate way to say goodbye._  
_  
_Rachel:  
Maybe I had said something that was wrong.  
Can I make it better with the lights turned on?  
Maybe I had said something that was wrong.  
Can I make it better with the lights turned on?_

In the meantime, Finn Hudson was opening the door of his apartment. The door of the house he shared with Rachel. When he heard the knocking, he expected Santana or Kurt. Even Blaine. Though all his hopes and wishes were that Rachel would be on the other side of the door.

"We need to talk," Quinn Fabray said.

_Rachel:_  
_Maybe I had said something that was wrong.  
Can I make it better with the lights turned on?  
Maybe I had said something that was wrong.  
Can I make it better with the lights turned on?_

Rachel Barbra Berry had had it all and traded it all for every inch of guilt existing in the world. She breathed guilt. Guilt was the only thing running through her veins. Guilt fed her brains and heart. Guilt was actually her middle name. And the only thing she could think of when she saw Dustin Goolsby lifting the biggest trophy of the two remaining on stage.

* * *

"There's something you should know," the blonde queen of bitches told Finn as she sat down on the couch. "And this is not because I want to sabotage your relationship with Rachel. The other way around, I just…"

"Cut the crap, Quinn. Please." Finn was not in the mood at all for Quinn's scheming after having to put up with all the politeness and false friendship between him and Blaine earlier that morning. "Sorry, that was rude." He bit his lip and refused to sit next to his ex. Wandering up and down the living room was a better medicine for him during the strict no-news-about-Rachel regime he was imposed.

"And this is the reason why I should tell you this." Quinn was smiling warmly. "Finn, I loved you once. Twice, in fact." She chuckled. "Well, I loved you more times than any sane person would have wished, but that's not my point. Look at you."

Finn was actually kind of in a bad place. An old grey tee with cocoa stains on it. A pair of boxers as old as the shirt on age and only one ragged sock on. He looked down at himself and lost any possible argument. "Quinn, seriously, I'm not having a good day. Or a good week for a fact." He chuckled at himself, feeling as pathetic as a man who was the last one to know that he had lost his girl could feel.

"You don't need to pretend that you broke up with Rachel to make me stop doing… whatever you think I'm trying to do. I want to make amends. Especially with you. You were caught in the middle of everything and… I don't want you to lose time with Rachel because I can't have it with you. Or with anyone, actually." Quinn laughed, joining the self-pity party Finn had put up.

"Did…" he tried to find the name of a person who could have betrayed him and Rachel, but he trusted too much in too many people. "Who…?"

"Blaine."


	26. Lima Exposure

**Last part of the fic. Just four more chapters to go. And pinky promise I wrote this song in before the news of the additions to the cast for season 5 :P**

* * *

**26. Lima Exposure**

Rachel Berry was clad in a pink, tight, knee length dress when she walked into the stage as her heels echoed through the auditorium. Her outfit on that graduation day was more appropriate than the fabric-lacking one she chose for prom night.

It had been a week since Nationals. Since that dreadful Saturday morning when she promised herself that her story with the William McKinley High School would end the minute she was through with that graduation.

The morning of the graduation she asked herself for a reason to attend it. For six days she hadn't talked to anyone. Not Finn, not Santana, not Blaine… She turned off her phone before they took the plane back to Lima and didn't switch it on again.

Her parents asked her every single day what was going on. They wanted to know why their allegedly daughter star was locked down in her room, isolated from the rest of the world. "Gathering strength," she had replied once to Hiram.

After six days and six nights of self-punishing and self-pity, the diva stood up from her bed, got all dolled up and decided to get herself over her high-school years the only way she knew how to get closure: under the spotlights that watched her grow into the woman she was that day.

_[Skyscraper - Demi Lovato]_

_Rachel:  
Skies are crying, I am watching.  
Catching teardrops in my hands.  
Only silence, as it's ending.  
Like we never had a chance._

_Do you have to make me feel like_  
_there's nothing left of me?_

Santana Lopez appeared out of the blue from one side of the backstage with half a smile on her face and a ponytail wavering calmly from left to right.

_Rachel and Santana:  
You can take everything I have.  
You can break everything I am._

_Santana:  
Like I'm made of glass._

_Rachel:  
Like I'm made of paper._

A tear crawled out of Rachel's eye when she saw her best friend without a look of hatred on her face.

_Santana:  
Go on and try to tear me down._

_Rachel:  
I will be rising from the ground.  
Like a skyscraper._

_Rachel and Santana:  
Like a skyscraper._

The door atop the stairs of the auditorium opened up. The lights from the hallway illuminated the dim space the girls were singing in and they felt blinded when they tried to guess whose silhouette was standing there.

_Blaine:  
As the smoke clears, I awaken  
and untangle you from me.  
Would it make you feel better  
to watch me while I bleed?_

Blaine walked/jumped down stairs as if he hadn't seen his best friend for a lifetime.

_Blaine and Rachel:  
All my windows still are broken,  
but I'm standing on my feet._

And Rachel Berry's smile went back to her face once Blaine reached the stage.

_Rachel:  
You can take everything I have.  
You can break everything I am._

_Blaine and Rachel:  
Like I'm made of glass.  
Like I'm made of paper._

Meanwhile, the queen of bitches couldn't but eyeroll her eyelashes off at the signs of affection between the estranged… relationship-status-unclear.

_Blaine, Rachel and Santana:  
Go on and try to tear me down.  
I will be rising from the ground.  
Like a skyscraper.  
Like a skyscraper._

_Santana:  
Go, run, run, run.  
I'm gonna stay right here.  
Watch you disappear, yeah. _

_Blaine and Santana:  
Go, run, run, run.  
Yeah, it's a long way down. (Rachel: Down)  
But I am closer to the clouds up here._

Rachel stood in the middle of them two, hoping she could avoid any friction or regrettable on-stage drama.

_Rachel:  
You can take everything I have._

_Blaine:  
You can break everything I am._

_Santana:  
Like I'm made of glass. _

_Blaine and Rachel:  
Like I'm made of paper._

_Santana:_  
_Oh!_

_Blaine, Rachel and Santana:  
Go on and try to tear me down.  
I will be rising from the ground._

_Blaine:  
Like a skyscraper._

_Rachel:  
Like a skyscraper! _

_Santana:  
Like a skyscraper._

_Blaine, Rachel and Santana:  
Like a skyscraper._

_Rachel:  
Like a skyscraper._

As the piano faded away and the always unnoticed Brad stood and left the room, unthanked as usual, Rachel abandoned any hope of her third big support showing up. She sighed and smiled, happy to have been in such a good company during her swan song. "I think I owe you both an apology for disappearing this week."

Santana and her tight-as-hell red dress moved to sit on the piano, but she gave it a second thought and walked back to Rachel. "You are a massive bitch for all you've done. And I don't approve that." In spite of the tender grin she had on her face, she didn't hesitate when it came to slapping Rachel with all her strength. "This is for me. Because you don't get to lie to your best friend in her face." Then a second bitchslap came to match Rachel's red left cheek. "And this is for Finn. He might be a barely-walking sack of lard, but he is the fucking best thing that's ever been yours and you have to learn to treat him like the lady he ought to be." She turned around slowly towards Blaine and threw her hand at his face before any possible introduction, but the boy had faster reflexes and dodged the slap. "You don't know how many years I've been waiting for an acceptable excuse to give you a taste of my tough love, Frodo. You might be a sneaky little target, but I swear to all the Mexican gods that you are not going to graduate without a massive Santana Lopez autograph on your face." She spat at Blaine's feet and resumed her way out, leaving behind the piano she was supposed to warm with her perfect arse. "I'm done here. I don't want to see another round of the most disgusting porn poor Mother Earth must have witnessed during her 2013 years of existence. You better be a pair of quick comers because you'd be glad to be out of here in less than five minutes."

Flushed Rachel and freaked-out Blaine stood there, watching Santana get out as they tried to figure out why on Earth she might think that the world was created exactly 2013 years ago. "Are you okay?" Blaine asked between chuckles as he went to hug Rachel.

Rachel laughed back as she wrapped her arms around Blaine's back. "Yeah. I guess I've earned those two."

Once they let go of the embrace, they remained one foot from each other anyway, looking into each other's eyes now that they were the same height. "I thought you were mad at me," Blaine said with his cute puppy eyes.

"I thought she was mad at me." Rachel chuckled. "In fact, I think everybody is mad at me and it's going to be a public embarrassment for me instead of your graduation. By the way, how did you know I was here?"

"You are the only person in this world who's able to book the auditorium one week ahead and force the committee to prepare an outside graduation." Blaine laughed along with his best friend. "And Santana might have someone following you or something like that."

"Seems legit now that I am the whore of Babylon."

There was an awkward moment of silence between them before they started wandering in circles around the stage. "We need to talk about that." Blaine decided to break the ice and start with all the shit they had to dig out of the situation.

"We need to talk about many things." Rachel rubbed her neck and fixed her gaze on the floor. "Haven't spoken to anyone since they casted me out after the performance. So…" She hated herself for the question she was about to ask, but it was the only thing that mattered to her in that moment. "Does Finn already know?"

"Not that I know. The only ones who know it in New York are Santana and Kurt."

Rachel hadn't given much thought to all the repercussions their quickie had had on their whole social circle. Yes, Santana might be raging mad because she couldn't stop the prophesized coitus, the chances of her relationship with Finn being ruined forever were more than high when he found out, but Kurt… She felt even worse when she thought what Kurt would have thought of her when he found out she had slept with the love of his life. "Oh my God, Kurt." Some tears of guilt burned inside her eyes. "How's he? Did he…?"

"Nobody speaks to me much either, but Sam told me he wasn't handling it with much ease."

"Sam?"

Blaine took a deep breath. "Don't freak out, but Quinn's been very supportive to Finn all week. Santana told Kurt because she exploded one night and Kurt told Quinn during one of the classes at NYADA she's been sneaking in."

Rachel's eyes turned from stingy wet to wide open and dry. "She's… She knows… and she's with Finn?!"

"All I know is that she's trying to get them all used to her presence there and… well… she hasn't told Finn about us yet, which I find pretty surprising."

She took her hands to her head. "So now she's Kurt bestie and she's been filling my gap all week while I was in my bed. Fantastic. Another couch to burn."

Blaine frowned. "Another?"

"Santana's drunk tournées around the building. Don't ask." Rachel ran her fingers through her hair nervously. "What else happened while you were there for your…? Oh my God I totally forgot to ask you!" Rachel stopped and turned to Blaine. "How did the audition go?!"

The boy laughed at how self-centered Rachel was and how small other people's problems were for her more than often. And how he loved that. "I got in."

Rachel was all giggling and high-pitched congratulatory words when she threw herself into Blaine's arms. "Oh my God you made it!" She yelled and cheered into the boy's ear, even hanging from his neck. "You made it!"

"And Kurt and I kissed," he mumbled, but not fast enough for Rachel to miss the confession.

She shut up all of a sudden and looked into Blaine's eyes, still with her arms wrapped around the little Warbler's neck. "Excuse me?" There was definitely jealousy in her voice. As if something had just been taken away from her.

"He kissed me the other day… and I kissed him back. And Sebastian kissed me too the night before, but I turned him down."

"How many people have you been with in the last week?" Rachel asked offended now that she knew she was just another one in the surprisingly long list of Blaine Anderson's love interests. "Seriously? What are you playing?" Rachel let go of the hug and took a couple steps back.

"Sebastian almost proposed in my brother's room and Kurt just kissed me!" Blaine replied outraged. "Rachel, you can't get mad because people like me!" The unexpected mood swing of the diva shocked his hair gel off.

"No, Blaine. I get mad because…" Rachel stopped herself from going any further. There was something she had learned from her days far from the light. She knew that she needed stability. She couldn't let herself be an emotional rollercoaster, getting angry at the people she loved, pushing them away just because of her insecurities. She had to stop taking things for granted and assuming people's motivations before asking. "Why?" she inquired way more calm. "Why did you kiss him back?" Though she finished the question before she could add an "…if you are in love with me?" Yes, Rachel Berry had no doubt about Blaine's feelings. And the worst thing about that was that neither she could doubt hers.

Blaine shrugged. He was used to the clashes he often had with Rachel. They had feelings, they burst into each other, they cried it all out and made up (or out, depending on the occasion. Giggles). "Rach, Kurt loves me. Sebastian loves me. What can I do? Trust me, I really wish it was otherwise and I didn't have to turn them down and break th…"

"You don't have to no more."

Then Blaine and Rachel understood what Santana meant when she warned them to get out of the auditorium in five minutes. "Kurt…" Rachel said when she saw her once bestie walking down the stairs of the auditorium.

"Don't talk to me." Kurt's words were as rough as brushing your teeth with sandpaper. "Is Santana here?"

"Kurt, please…" Blaine said, but by the time Kurt was to climb upon the stage, the bowtied boy tried to reach out to him but the New Yorker dodged his touch.

"I just want to know where Santana is. Not talk to you. Not talk to her. And most definitely not see you two together," he replied as he looked around backstage, avoiding eye contact with the two lovers.

The door through which Kurt had come in opened once more. "She's not in the…" It was Finn, but his voice broke when he found someone different from the Santana he was looking for on stage. He froze on the spot, so the other two people who were with him crashed into his back, making him tumble forward and take a grip on one of the seats.

"Dude, what the hell are you doing behind the door? Oh." Jesse needed not be answered that question. Though the third one to walk in answered for Finn.

"Catching someone red-handed, it's called," Quinn Fabray said.

Upon the stage, Blaine and Rachel were absolutely pale. The thing they were expecting the least was all of the New Yorkers dropping by for graduation. Santana had a cute dumb blonde reason to be there, but Kurt? And Quinn? And Jesse, who didn't come to Rachel's graduation? "What are you doing here?" she asked the only one she was concerned about. "And why is she here?"

Finn remained silent. He did not know what to say. He knew he was going to run into Rachel one way or another, either at the graduation or at Mr. Shue's wedding. The problem there was that in all the speeches he had rehearsed in his head, no Blaine could be found all alone with his girl in their auditorium.

"Okay, everybody out." Jesse stepped into the situation. He picked Quinn by the arm and hissed at Kurt to make him leave the stage as Finn headed down the stairs. "This is between these two, not us. We have to find Santana."

That outburst of sense and sensibility left all the rest pretty much dumbfounded, but neither the blonde bitch nor the despaired Hummel unheard the command. Somehow, Blaine dared to stay next to Rachel as Finn approached and the rest left the room. He got the harshest of looks from Kurt, and it felt as a spit into his eye. But he did not move. He wouldn't leave Rachel with all the blame.

"Don't you have a gown to wear or something, Blaine?" Finn asked sourly. He was tired. Tired of all the drama and struggle to keep his relationship with Rachel afloat. "I'd like to talk to Rachel in private." He looked deeply into Blaine's hazel eyes and perked an eyebrow. "Buddy." As if five letters of fake friendliness could make the scene less awkward.

"I think we should…" he started replying.

"Have you screwed my girlfriend?" Finn Hudson's eyes lost all kindness. He knew. Blaine saw inside of them all the anger he had been gathering since their first clash and it was not a pretty sight. Finn Hudson was used to being a warm, loving and lovable person, but the only thing towering over Blaine was 6'3" of rage and fire. "Have you screwed my girlfriend?!" he yelled in Blaine's face (more or less, due to the flagrant height difference).

Blaine was terrified. He had planned some reactions for the moment his carnal affair with Rachel was exposed, though all the courage required to accomplish them was so out of reach.

And Rachel, ten feet away from them, just stood there watching her men about to explode while breathing shame and losing her hearing. Finn knew. And that was all she could think of. Finn knew she had had sex with Blaine. Finn knew.

"Frodo, out!" Santana interrupted Rachel's mental abstraction with her booming yell. "Right now! Out of here!" She was rushing in through one of the backstage doors. "This is not about you, goddamn it!" The Lima Heights diva started pushing Blaine away from Finn and out of the stage to the point that he almost fell off the edge. "Get out! Get a life! Go screw yourself! God! You are not with Rachel! You are not Rachel's boyfriend! Fucking asshole, she doesn't love you! GO!" She did not leave Blaine a chance to reply nor to defend himself. Her sudden return to the auditorium was a thunder of strength and aggressive sincerity.

Blaine didn't fight back. At first, he tried to stop Santana's hands by grasping her wrists, but when his eyes met Rachel's watery ones across the stage, he saw how Rachel didn't react and how she was with her friend in that offensive.

"Fuck, out!" Santana had a vein crossing her forehead when she shut the door in Blaine's face. "God!" she screamed with relief as she slid down the lateral wall of the April Rhodes Civic Pavilion. "Give me a moment to catch my breath and I'll leave you two alone, alright?" she said with half a smile on her face and a total crazy hair. "By the way, Lardy, you owe me one. I saved the big punch for you."

In spite of the comical component of their friend's literally kicking Blaine out of the auditorium, the couple didn't laugh. Rachel recalled that time when Santana had appeared after they had sung 'Come What May' during her and Kurt's masterclass, heel in hand. "How did everything go so wrong?" Rachel thought. "Where did I lose control?"

Finn finally woke up after Santana's intervention. He was as surprised as his girl by what they had just witnessed. "Rach… Babe…" he started in a low tone, trusting on Santana's discretion and getting ready for the answer to the question that had crossed his mind since the first time he was suggested the idea in New York. "You know I love you. You know I trust you." All the fury had disappeared from his eyes. "Tell me the truth, please." He was the same sweet Finn Hudson she had fallen in love with. The man she wanted to build a life together with. In fact, he was the man with whom she had a life, but she knew she was about to turn it all into rags. "Rach, is there something between you and Blaine?"

She walked the remaining steps between her and Finn and looked up with tears already down her face. A deep breath. A stopped heart. A full confession.

Then two broken, breathless hearts.


	27. The love of the Berry

**27. The love of the Berry**

"Say something, please."

But Finn Hudson could not pull a word out of his throat. He had listened carefully to Rachel's words. He had pictured every single scene his girlfriend had described to him. Full detail. In slow motion.

Her story was far from pleasing to his ears since the very first "Yes" after the "Is there something between you and Blaine?". Her voice was weak, but at least she found the strength, the courage or the respect not to refuse any single question Finn had asked.

"When?"

"Prom night."

"Never before?"

"Absolutely nothing since you and I moved to New York."

"How far did you go?"

"Far, Finn. Far."

"Did you do more than kissing?"

"Yes."

"Sex?"

"Yes."

"How was it?"

"Finn, please."

"How did it happen, Rachel?"

"Quinn and I had a fight during the ball. She slushied me. I just couldn't go any further with her, so I ran off. Blaine followed me. I was devastated. I broke down and told him that you and I hadn't faked the break-up that much."

"And then he kissed you? He just needed me out of the picture to go for you?"

"You are not out of the picture."

"That night I was."

"You were not."

"Then you were thinking of me while you screwed him?"

"Yes."

"Is it better with him?"

"Finn, what do you mean?"

"Does he do it better than I do? You liked it better than when I love you?"

"No."

"Do you want to do it again with him?"

"No. It was a mistake, Finn. And I hated mys… We hated ourselves for it."

"You love me?"

"You know I do."

"Then why does this look like you're just telling me what I want to hear?"

"I promise you I have not lied to you. Never."

"That's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying you're lying to me. Prove it though. Say something it's true and I don't want to hear."

"Finn…"

"Rachel, say it."

"What can I say?"

"Do you love him?"

"Yes."

And then it happened. Finn had faced the conversation with bravery and strength to cope with every single word Rachel could say to him. He could handle the secrets, the sex and the hiding, but the fact that she was in love with Blaine was going too far.

"Say something, please," Rachel asked once she noticed that Finn had no more questions for her. "Just… say something." She hadn't even noticed till that moment that Santana had left the auditorium after kicking Blaine out.

"You love him," he repeated absent-mindedly as he wandered around the stage with his hands on his head. Little by little his brain dealt with all the processing it had to do. "You love him," he kept on actually reminding himself on the very same place where he had proposed. The very same place where they kissed for the first time. The place where their love grew. And the place where he held it between his hands, dying. "How…?"

"Finn, I love you."

"But if you love me why did you do it?! Why do you have to love HIM?!" Finn lost it among all the feelings he had suppressed along the months. "Rachel, I love you! I have loved you since the moment I saw you for the first time!"

Rachel burst into tears. Ashamed. Broken. Unable to look Finn in the eye. "I love you too!"

"Just answer! Why am I not enough for you?!" he roared in front of Rachel, though she was covering her face with her hands. "Why?!"

"I don't know." Yes, she knew. There was a box full of reasons the little devil on her left shoulder whispered into her ear every time she tried to justify her sins. One: Blaine was always there for her. Two: Blaine was the one who got away. Three: Blaine loved her with his whole soul. Four: Blaine traded sexualities for her. Five: Blaine left everyone who ever loved him for her. Six: Blaine was the only thing everybody had forbidden her to have. Seven: it was Blaine. But she said none of this. "I know I regret it and I love you."

"You keep saying that but you act otherwise." The steam went on and off, and that phrase definitely left him worn out. "You know everybody distrusted you except for me? Do you know that?"

"Finn…" she called out his name between pouts, as if that could make her pain go away and her torture cease.

"Do you know what I said? Maybe you know that. I told them all to go screw themselves, because I trusted you. I trusted you to have grown up from those times you cheated on me with Puck. I trusted you to be able to have such a wonderful friend like Blaine and not betray me."

"I am sorry!" she cried at the top of her lungs. "I am sorry!"

"I thought we were through high school. I thought we were a strong couple. That if we moved in together and lived under the same room for almost a year you wouldn't come back to Lima and turn 16 again." Finn stepped back away from Rachel. "I don't know about you anymore, but I am an adult. And sorry fixes nothing."

_[Sorry seems to be the hardest word - Elton John]_

A piano started playing inside Finn's head as Rachel kept on repeating she loved him, how bad she felt and how deeply sorry she was. But he heard no words. He found no use in it.

_Finn:  
What do I got to do to make you love me?  
What do I got to do to make you care?  
What do I do when lightning strikes me?  
And I wake to find that you're not there?_

_What do I do to make you want me?_  
_What do I got to do to be heard?_  
_What do I say when it's all over?_  
_And sorry seems to be the hardest word._

_It's sad. (Rachel: So sad)_  
_So sad._

_Finn with Rachel:  
It's a sad, sad situation._

_Finn:  
And it's getting more and more absurd._

_It's sad. (Rachel: So sad)_  
_So sad._

_Finn with Rachel:  
Why can't we talk it over?_

_Finn:  
Oh, it seems to me  
that sorry seems to be the hardest word._

Tears streamed down Rachel's face since the very first true word that came out of her mouth, but Finn had taken his time to join the emotional wrecking convention that was being thrown upon the stage.

_Finn:  
It's sad. (Rachel: So sad)  
So sad. _

_Finn with Rachel:  
It's a sad, sad situation._

_Finn:  
And it's getting more and more absurd._

_It's sad. (Rachel: So sad)  
So sad. _

_Finn with Rachel:  
Why can't we talk it over?_

_Finn:  
Oh, it seems to me  
that sorry seems to be the hardest word._

_What do I do to make you love me? Oh.  
What do I got to do to be heard?  
What do I do when lightning strikes me?  
What do I got to do?_

_What do I got to do?!_

_And sorry seems to be the hardest word._

"Finn…"

When he came back to reality, Rachel was calling his name again and cupping his wet face. "I… I need time. Just…" He was trying to walk away, but Rachel was holding onto his cheeks too tightly for him to get off without a scratch.

"Let me go, Rachel."

"Promise me you are not going to leave me," she said out of complete desperation with the last breath she had inside her soul.

"Let go of me, Rachel, please," he replied sourly, but unable to make his eyes dry out.

"Finn, say that you love and that we can go through this. Tell me we can make this work. Finn, please!" As Finn Hudson managed to struggle to get out of Rachel's grip, her screaming got louder and her nails clenched into his five o'clock shadow. "Don't leave me!"

And the lights went out.

* * *

"I'm not quite content with this new acquisition of our conclave, for the record," Santana Lopez said to the rest of the people with her in the choir room. "Like… seriously, what the hell is wrong with you guys?"

The blonde girl in the pink dress sitting on the piano replied with a self-satisfied chuckle. "You better get used to it, because I'm here to stay."

"Leave Quinn alone, Santana," Kurt interceded for the Queen of Hell as he fixed his hair in the reflection of the black surface upon which Quinn's ass was pressed.

"Thank you, hon," the defended said as she helped her friend out with his bangs.

"And you two are okay with this?" Santana referred to Finn and Jesse, who were sitting side by side on two chairs and in identical positions. Spread legs, elbows on their knees, face in their hands and eyes fixed on their feet. The Lima Heights diva clapped two cymbals with all her strength. "Wake up and tell me why she is one of us now!"

"She is not a bad person, Santana," Finn replied in a plain tone of voice and not bothering to turn his head up to look at the girl he was talking to. "She's been helping me this week and I'm not going to kick her out because you feel threatened. Be mature and deal with it."

Santana walked noisily on her heels towards Quinn. "What did you do to them? You drugged him or what?! I've been out of New York for one week. Just one week. And you are not such a good devil's bitch to spell them to forget you tried to destroy us all."

"You really got to stop holding grudges against the world to hide your insecurities, Santana. It's not healthy and it will give you wrinkles," she replied with her widest smile. "Move on."

"It was this same month when you manipulated Brittany to make her break up with me and played Rachel into fucking Frodo!"

"First of all, I didn't manipulate Brittany. Just helped her find out the kind of whore she had for a girlfriend. And second of all, Rachel did that to herself. I just slushied her for the hundredth time in our lives." And with her whole evil magnificence, Quinn caught Santana's hand on its way to slap her fake eyelashes off right after she called her 'whore'. "And if you were not this predictable, I wouldn't have been able to do so." She kept on smiling as she twisted Santana's wrist and she squirmed in pain.

The bitch in red stepped away from Quinn's mortal pincer and shook her hand to reactivate the circulation of her body. "Motherfucking genius," she whispered as she made a face.

"Conclusion: she's going to spend at least the next four years with us and we better get along instead of keep fighting and trying to scheme against one another," Kurt sentenced with his surprising calm. "By the way, all those in favor of censoring any allusion to Blaine from here on and therefore punishing it with the genitalia twisting penalty raise your hand."

"Aye," Jesse echoed as Finn and Quinn put their hands up in the air.

"Are we seriously switching LucyFer Bray for Frodo? He might fuck your cows and steal women or vice versa, but he is not a home wrecker like this one," she pointed at Quinn, trying to make a statement kind of weak.

Finn rose up with an eyebrow perked at Santana. "Seriously?"

And then she realized that maybe Blaine had wrecked the Finchel home with his dick more easily than Quinn had planned with her whole wits.

"Nut twisting for boys, tit punching for girls. Alright?" Kurt ended up his decree-law proposal as soon as he finished his hair.

"Aye," Jesse said once again.

"Who were you talking about again, my dear?" Quinn asked Santana as she cracked her knuckles sadistically.

Santana had no other choice but to move to the opposite corner of the room and sit behind the drums for protection. "You are a sick devious bitch."

Quinn winked and blew a kiss. "Love you too."

"The point here is that we've come to a graduation, not to tit-punch anyone or to keep crying over people who don't deserve us, right, boys?" Kurt stood up from the piano bench and snapped his fingers at Finn and Jesse. "You might have a ten minutes leave to figure out how you're going to handle the Rachel thing. Exclusively Rachel, because she is Rachel, the love of your life, my she-soulmate and whether we like or not, a key part of our family. The rest can go rot in hell." He squeezed Finn's shoulder supportively, towards which he replied with a weak smile of appreciation. "But you…" Kurt eyerolled at Jesse and slapped his face with moderate strength. "That little piece of crap was my boyfriend. I am the one entitled to grieve for him because he screwed my best friend and kissed me two days later as if it were nothing. You were his one night stand. Pull yourself together and make some use of your presence here, which I exactly do not understand."

"Amen, brother." Quinn led the way out, feinting towards Kurt's crotch after his mention to the little Berrynailer.

"To me both of you are equally pathetic," Santana said before she exited, once she was alone with the hurting boys. "Lardy Lard, she regrets it. I know it. And we both know how she works in relationships: she fucks it up when she has it all and then fights her way to bring you back with her tooth and nail. Don't waste time and don't force us to go on another tournée of serenading. 'Woman in Love' has too big choruses and I am old and weary. And, St. Nothing, if you are going to be my new male co-bitch, you better not be a pathetic little girl. If you came to this depressive village to win him over and found out he had sung the duet of his life with your ex girlfriend, chin up and be a bitch, don't bitch about it." And with that she left. As usual, always setting the bar high every time she stormed out. Lord, this girl is on fire.

"You never told me why you were coming here with us," Finn said to his kind-of-new-best-bro.

"Now it's clear that there was no use in it." Jesse hadn't changed his position in the last thirty minutes, and the spotlight shining on him wasn't going to be a reason to change that fact.

"I didn't know you were so deeply into him, man."

"Again, what's the use?"

"Because you might help me understand what Rachel sees in him." Finn chuckled, feeling pathetic but strong enough to wrap an arm around Jesse's shoulders and pull him closer.

"If anyone had told me about this moment the last time you and I were in this room all those years ago, I would have kicked their teeth out," Jesse laughed along and hugged Finn. "But I'll kick yours if you tell anyone about this. I have a reputation to live up to."


	28. Nothing left to say

**28. Nothing left to say**

"Grouper mouth… Froggy lips…" Santana's voice echoed from the hallway loud enough for Sam and Quinn to hear her. The pair of blonds was sitting on opposite desks in the Astronomy classroom. Both of them chuckled and rolled their eyes at Santana's anthem.

"Okay, now that we're back to junior year, please don't make the Uranus joke," Quinn said with a cute smile on her face as she swung her legs and curled her hair behind her ear.

Sam grinned, paying special attention to show off his full pillow-sized chops. "I'll try my best." He was already clad in the red graduation gown. His hair slicked back following Blaine's advice. "But you know I have a diploma to pick up in like five minutes and I don't know why you called me in here."

Quinn hopped off the table and walked towards Sam slowly. "There are things we should get right. And you know, with the after ceremony party and all the celebration I don't know if we're going to get a moment to talk." She put her hands on Sam's knees and looked right into his eyes with tenderness. Finally, after a couple seconds for her to take some air and get herself ready, she spoke. "The last thing I was expecting when I came back for Brad's tribute was to have you back. Well, actually attending another prom was even more unreal if possible." She chuckled charmingly and pressed a finger against the one and only trouty mouth to shut Sam up before he interrupted her. "The thing is that I like what we have. I enjoy the way you make me feel. You make me feel young and I think that just sounded as if I was an old crone, which I'm not, but wasting my freshman year of college had me severely disoriented time-wise. Anyway, I need to know if…"

"I'm not going to move to New York." Sam's reply was strong and determined, but said with tenderness and care though. No matter how hard you press one girly index finger against Sam's lips, we are talking about the boy that can suck a baby's head here. Fool Fabray for thinking she could shut him up. "I love you. You are the most special girl I've ever been with, but…" he smiled when he saw his declaration hadn't brought Quinn down at all and she was standing there as almighty and gorgeous as usual.

"…But you have your life and your dreams as I have mine, and we're not stupid enough to drag each other along into a long-term unbearable drama," Quinn finished Sam's sentence in a way richer vocabulary that he would have employed, but correct all the same.

Sam smiled and held Quinn's hands. "You really should stop making references to Finn and Rachel if you have some peace the next for years want to." His Yoda impersonation definitely killed the little-to-none disappointment in the bitch's mind.

Quinn laughed along with Sam's old gag, faking the fact that she liked his impressions as she had been doing for the past four years. "What are you going to do after today? I mean, if you're not going to follow the fashion of moving to the Big Apple…"

"Lima is not that bad. My siblings have their lives here and I was thinking about staying to help my family till my parents get completely back on their feet. So…"

"A two-year-long hold for your projects and then what?"

"Is the girl who dropped out of Yale really asking me about lifelong projects that I'm not even willing to plan? Only time will tell, and I don't want to tell time to rush on."

They joined in one last big laugh before Sam got up from the desk. "You are wiser than I thought, Sam Evans." She got on her tiptoes to kiss Sam goodbye. Sam kissed her back. And they let go with clear consciousness. "Before we leave there's something I have to ask you."

"Yeah?" Sam said as he held the doorknob, smiling widely.

"Did you and Puck talked about…?"

"Yes."

Sam walked out, with his satisfied grin shining on his face. He knew he had done right. And Quinn stood there analyzing the cardboard galaxy for a moment, realizing how vastly wise Sam Evans truly was and how wisdom might be contagious as mono because she had figured out what she really wanted to have as her lifelong project. Correction: who she really wanted to have as her lifelong project.

* * *

"Berry!" Sebastian Smythe called the girl from the end of the hallway. He hurried to her, having certain problems with walking in a gown that was definitely not long enough for his height. In fact, he stumbled when he reached Rachel, stomping on her foot.

Rachel dried the couple tears that were gathering in her eyes. As usual, every time she went down to Lima, paying a visit to her old locker was a must. It was some sort of tradition since her graduation. Reliving her greatest hits during class breaks and sliding an autographed picture of hers dedicated to the new owner of the locker into it. Creepy for the poor freshman who didn't know what kind of stalker was sending him pictures of a girl he hadn't met in his whole life. Empowering for the diva, who thought she was leading a lucky Johnie Doe towards a career of stage success. Rachel's things.

Once her tradition was fulfilled, she turned around to face the tall Warbler. "What?" she replied sourly, no pleasure found in putting up with the person who told Santana about her affair with Blaine. Though the fault would be Frodo's for telling Sebastian in the first place. And… well… if we start pulling the chain of guilt… she was the one to blame for spreading her legs for Blaine to… you know… walk in… with his… "Knock knock, it's Blaine's dick, may I come in?" "Of course not. Pull up the drawbridge." Doors closed and no worldwide crisis. Easy, don't you think? Well, that's not what happened as you all know and my point here is that Sebastian played a nice part in the exposé.

"Can I ask you something?" Sebastian's tone was definitely friendly, as if no fight had happened between him and Rachel in the dressing room at Nationals. And as if he hadn't ever blackmailed her with a poorly photoshopped photo of Finn before their almost-wedding one year ago.

Rachel frowned, confused by Sebastian's mellowness. "Of course not," she replied while nodding and blinking. Rachel turned her back on Sebastian and walked to the courtyard, where the graduation was about to be held.

Sebastian rolled his eyes at himself. How in hell did he think that Rachel would agree to do him a favor after all the dirt he had thrown at her throughout the years? "It's just a quick question I need you to answer. No bullshit. Just… I just need to know this one thing and I'll be out of your hair for the rest of your life." That was the real Sebastian. Out of falseness, right to the chase, no politesse in a 50-mile radius. "I swear I won't go to New York under any circumstance in forever. You have my word."

The ex-former-ex-alum stopped her flight and turned around just to mock Sebastian in his face. "I am a many-genre singer, polyvalent actress and multifunctional human being, but there is no way in which I could pretend that your word is worth a damn crap."

The boy's expression remained stolid against Rachel's attacks. He needed something from her desperately, and if getting it would mean that he'd have to be humiliated, hell if he was willing to beg, crawl and kill for it. "It's just one question. It's easy. Not theoretical physics or philosophical dilemmas. Just one yes/no question and therefore we can deny each other's existences for the rest of our lives." His eyes were piercing Rachel's, cold as ice on the surface, but paining and heart-broken inside.

"I don't care." All Rachel Berry cared about was her life, her problems, her friends and her Finn. And definitely there was no place for Sebastian Smythe among those categories. "And I do hope you trip over while picking up the diploma and break your damn horse teeth, because you would have absolutely deserved it." She smiled, pulling out every single pinch of bitchiness in her body and resumed her walk.

"Was sacrificing everything for Blaine really worth it?"

Rachel froze in the middle of the hallway at Sebastian's words from the top of his lungs. And all the grudge and hate became comprehension and… sympathy. Sympathy for the devil. Rachel and Sebastian were not so different in the end. They both were in love with Blaine. And they both were the ones who'd lose if they didn't fall out soon enough, though they had already had the greatest taste of the consequences of their feelings.

Sebastian needed closure. And that closure, ironically, was Rachel's and not Blaine's to give. So she smiled to herself and all the bitchiness wore off. She was not a bitch. She was Rachel Barbra Berry. Hurt and everything, but not a bad person. She was a vegetarian, for God's sakes. How would she deny closure to a fly?

"No."

The boy walked the distance between him and the diva slowly. "Thank you," he said with Rachel still unwilling to speak a word to him.

"You said one question. Just one question. And I've given you the answer. Go." But what she really meant was "go before I break down because I put it all at stake for something I regret with my whole soul now".

"I was willing to give you something in return."

"What?"

"Blaine is not who you really think he is."

* * *

The real bitch in the red dress walked up the stairs of the courtyard steps where her partner was standing along with almost the rest of the 2013 promotion. "From one to San Francisco Gay Parade, guess how proud I am today."

Brittany S. Pierce was glowing in that gown, and her girlfriend knew. The act was about to begin, but anyway, a quick good-luck kiss before Santana occupied her seat next to Rachel and Mercedes in the audience. "B plus?"

The unbreakable Brittana, holding hands, chuckled together under the attentive stare of some morbid spectators. Specially Jacob Ben Israel, barely graduating, though the pleasure of having a public teen lesbian display of affection fifteen feet from Rachel Berry in a generously-cleavaged dress totally made him forget the crappy résumé he was taking into the Lima Community College.

"There's something I wanted to give you before you become a grown woman," Santana said before she kissed Brittany softly on the lips.

"I might not be a math genius, but I'm two months older than you. Am I not?" She was actually asking. In fact, since 2000, Brittany had been having several problems remembering her own age.

Santana laughed loudly. "You are, you are." Anyway, she got on one knee and looked up into Brittany's eyes. "Brittany S. Pierce…"

Brittany, along with the rest of the attendants, alumni and Santana's best New Yorkers included, let her jaw fall to the ground in absolute awe. "Oh my God, Santana is proposing!" Kurt yelled and literally pointed out from the bottom of the courtyard.

"No, I am not proposing. Seriously? You think so badly of me? We all know that the only one of us who gets to propose and almost-get-married unlimited times is Tubbinn Hudson over there." And everybody turned their stares to Finn, who was in the first row ironically sitting next to Quinn. Awkward moment. Berry's eyeroll. Quinn scooting her chair away from Finn embarrassed by the dumping-at-the-altar thing and attention back to Santana's proposal or… whatever. "Brittany S. Pierce, this is my graduation gift to you. You are my lady, and I bow to you." She opened her purse and pulled out her phone. "And New York City bows to you."

Brittany picked the phone and read out loud the text message on display. "'Okay, bring her in'?" She didn't get the complete meaning of it, but she got through the spelling with her brains in one piece. "What…?"

"Read the sender," Santana insisted, still holding one of the blonde's hands.

"Shelby."

"Shelby." Santana nodded and smiled widely, perking her eyebrows, now truly hoping Brit had got it.

"Shelby? Who's Shelby?" But she hadn't.

Jesse, now sitting between Finn and Quinn, yawned and shouted it clear to the poor poor Brittany. "Oh, God, nepotism applied to the vagina sciences. It's not that complicated!"

"Nep…?"

Santana laughed, adoring how cute Brittany got when she tried to understand certain high-level concepts. "If you bring Rachel's mom a diploma, you have a place as a background dancer on her musical. Brittany S. Pierce, do you want to work with me?"

The other girl blushed as she helped Santana to her feet so she could kiss her properly and the rest of the people applauded such unexpected job offer. "I do," she whispered into her girl's ear. "But I don't have a visa, is that a problem?"

"We'll work that out next year." And I'll leave the truth about Brittany's place of birth for the next volume, 'To Move Forward'. Stay tuned, it's a big cliffhanger. Where will it be? Mexico? Cuba? The aforementioned Uranus?

* * *

"My name is Tina Cohen-Chang, and sometimes I have the impression that I have voice-over too often and this might be some sort of obsessive-compulsive disorder." It was her moment, and she knew it. Actually, she thought she knew that a life-defining moment was taking place twice a week, but she is about to graduate, so we will let her go with this one, right, fellas? "Anyway, here I am. Walking down these hallways for the last time. Heading to the doors that separated the school I became a woman at from and the courtyard where I am going to be recognized as the adult I am."

Outside, the lunch tables had been replaced with cheap scissor chairs placed in two wings facing the concrete stairs. There, the graduates were standing. All smiles and caps and gowns. Only a wooden pulpit with a microphone and a pile of diplomas stacked on it was presiding the outdoor scenario.

"Whatever. This is my moment. You know why? Because I am going to make my moment out of life any single freaking time I please." Tina finished her self-reflection and pushed the door open as the band started playing from the bottom of the stairs. And finally all heads turned to look at her.

_[The best - Tina Turner]_

_Tina:  
I call you when I need you, my heart's on fire.  
You come to me, come to me wild and wired.  
When you come to me,  
give me everything I need._

She walked down the aisle, high-fiving every single known face she recognized. All the former New Directions were there. Especially her Mike, for whom she had a kiss on the cheek ready during the song break.

_Tina:  
Give me a lifetime of promises and a world of dreams.  
Speak a language of love like you know what it means.  
Oh and it can't be wrong.  
Take my heart and make it strong, baby._

She joined the rest of the promotion, her fellow Glee Clubbers in the first row of seniors.

_Tina with the graduates:  
You're simply the best.  
Better than all the rest.  
Better than anyone.  
Anyone I've ever met._

_I'm stuck on your heart._  
_I hang on every word you say._  
_Tear us apart._  
_Baby, I would rather be dead._

_Tina:  
In your heart I see the star of every night and every day.  
In your eyes I get lost, I get washed away.  
Just as long as I'm here in your arms  
I could be in no better place._

_Tina with the graduates:  
You're simply the best.  
Better than all the rest.  
Better than anyone.  
Anyone I've ever met._

_I'm stuck on your heart._  
_I hang on every word you say._  
_Oh tear us apart, no, no._  
_Baby, I would rather be dead._

She picked the microphone from the stand and walked to the audience. To her audience.

_Tina:  
Each time you leave me I start losing control.  
You're walking away with my heart and my soul.  
I can feel you even when I'm alone.  
Oh baby, don't let go!_

"That's my girl!" Kurt shouted from the very first row of seats as the sax man blew his instrument (insert any kind of sexual jokes here). Next to him, Finn, Jesse and Quinn nodding with complete approval and admiration.

_Tina:  
Oh! You're the best! Woo! _

_Tina with the graduates:  
Better than all the rest.  
Better than anyone.  
Anyone I've ever met._

_Oh I'm stuck on your heart._  
_I hang on every word you say._  
_Oh, tear us apart, no, no._  
_Baby, I would rather be dead._

_Tina:  
You're the best!_

On the other wing, the very Rachel Berry bowed to Tina, the just-not-proposed Santana Lopez waved her jazz hands in the air with recognition and Mercedes Jones wooed and cheered for her partner during the unsung days.

_Tina with the graduates:  
Oh you're simply the best!  
Better than all the rest.  
Better than anyone.  
Anyone I've ever met._

_I'm stuck on your heart.  
I hang on every word you say.  
No! Tear us apart, no, no.  
Baby, I would rather be dead. _

_Oh you're the best!  
You're better than all the rest!  
Better than anyone!  
Anyone I've ever met. _

_Tina:  
Oh I'm the best!_

The attendants, background seniors included, were about to start the standing ovation when they realized the slight egomaniac change of lyrics that the soloist had made to the song. Then the projected applause turned into a collective eyebrow-perking and eyeroll.

"That was totally out of place. And even more than false. You know I am the best," Sugar Motta broke the silence from the second row, though Marley Rose quickly elbowed her in the ribs to shut her up.

Tina blushed and returned to her place between Blaine and Brittany. "That was awesome," the blonde said into the Asian diva's ear.

Sue Sylvester came to the pulpit after she ripped the microphone from Tina's paralyzed hands, gave her a harsh look and placed it on the stand. "Good afternoon everybody. My name is Sue Sylvester as you all know and I'm filling in for our beloved Principal Figgins, who is out on a forced trip back to India due to personal reasons. Cough. Cow flu. Cough. Sorry. I have my throat slightly sore." She didn't even try to fake the coughing attack. "After this dreadful proof of the morals the Glee Club intends to impose through the degradation of our musical culture, I am going to introduce this year's valedictorian, Artie Wheels Abrams. And you don't know how grateful I am that this is the last year this National loser choir is going to be the center of every single academic event. Thank you, Will Schuester, you suck. I win." She grinned proudly, truly believing the Glee Club would be eradicated after a second batch of seniors setting off.

Sue dropped the microphone on Artie's lap disrespectfully as the boy rolled forward. "Thank you so much for this warm introduction, Coach. On behalf of all the Glee Club, I just wanted to say that we might have lost, but at least we didn't try to rape Blaine's brother."

Everybody muted and ohed at the same time, scandalized by such a bold, yet deserved, response. "You are going to regret that and I don't care how crippled you are!" Sue shouted outraged from the back row of seats. "Besides you only have two tires! That's even easier than a car!"

"The fact that you send Becky to slash my wheels doesn't make it fairer. You know that, right? Taking advantage of a handicapped person is even more punishable," Artie replied slowly and confidently. "Though you will probably get a sentence reduction for your. So go ahead."

The crowd burst into laughter and an ovation that muffled Sue's rabid cursing (there was actual froth coming out of her mouth) and forced the valedictorian to shout into the microphone. "And that's how the Glee Club pays back." Artie made the C sign with his hand, and dropped the mic and rolled away.

"What about the speech?" Blaine inquired as the boy went back to his previous place.

"For those who only oft-sing, dear Blaine, we have to leave the show at our greatest hit and there's no way that I can outbest that with any rite of passage stuff. Besides, I think I should leave the country while I get the restraining order."

* * *

**Only one chapter left. Tomorrow before Glee season premiere. Huge stuff. Get ready for it.**


	29. Moving day

**And this is end.**

* * *

**29. Moving day**

That Saturday was a long, long day.

New York awoke busy and noisy, as usual. Rachel Berry had definitely missed it. Lima's quiet was something she didn't enjoy, except for when she was singing. The thing is, even though the traffic was howling through the windows of every single room of her apartment, her bed felt like a morgue.

She was lying there, with her eyes wide open, watching the numbers of the clock go by one after the other, cuddled up on the very edge of the bed.

On the other side, Finn Hudson lay awake as well. He and Rachel had taken different flights back to NY, so they hadn't met after midnight on graduation day, when Rachel dropped her pink suitcase on the entrance of their flat and walked to their bedroom with her head down, clearly afraid of crossing words with her man, while Finn tried to watch TV, though he didn't have the ability to concentrate his mind on anything that wasn't all the damage of their relationship.

Their bed might not be a California King size, but that night and that morning the space between them felt like an ocean most definitely.

_[Just give me a reason - Pink ft. fun.]_

_Finn:  
Right from the start  
you were a thief,  
you stole my heart,  
and I your willing victim._

_I let you see the parts of me_  
_that weren't all that pretty._  
_And with every touch_  
_you fixed them._

_Now you've been talking in your sleep, oh, oh,_  
_things you never say to me, oh, oh._  
_Tell me that you've had enough_  
_of our love._  
_Our love._

_Finn and Rachel:  
Just give me a reason.  
Just a little bit's enough.  
Just a second, we're not broken, just bent.  
And we can learn to love again._

_It's in the stars._  
_It's been written in the scars on our hearts._  
_We're not broken, just bent._  
_And we can learn to love again._

_Rachel:  
I'm sorry I don't understand  
where all of this is coming from.  
I thought that we were fine._

_Finn:  
Oh we had everything. _

_Rachel:  
Your head is running wild again.  
My dear we still have everything.  
And It's all in your mind. _

_Finn:  
Yeah, but this is happening._

_Rachel:  
You've been having real bad dreams, oh, oh.  
You used to lie so close to me, oh, oh._

_Finn and Rachel:  
There's nothing more than empty sheets  
between our love, our love.  
Oh, our love, our love…_

_Rachel:  
Oh!_

_Finn and Rachel:_  
_Just give me a reason._  
_Just a little bit's enough._  
_Just a second, we're not broken, just bent._  
_And we can learn to love again._

_Finn:  
I never stopped.  
You're still written in the scars on my heart._

_Finn and Rachel.  
You're not broken, just bent.  
And we can learn to love again._

_Finn:  
Oh, tear ducts and rust._

_Rachel:  
I'll fix it for us._

_Finn:  
We're collecting dust.  
But our love's enough._

_Rachel:  
You're holding it in.  
You're pouring a drink. _

_Finn:  
No nothing is as bad as it seems._

_Rachel:  
We'll come clean._

_Finn and Rachel:  
Just give me a reason.  
Just a little bit's enough.  
Just a second, we're not broken, just bent.  
And we can learn to love again._

_It's in the stars.  
It's been written in the scars on our hearts.  
That we're not broken, just bent.  
And we can learn to love again._

_Just give me a reason._  
_Just a little bit's enough._  
_Just a second, we're not broken, just bent._  
_And we can learn to love again._

_It's in the stars._  
_It's been written in the scars on our hearts._  
_That we're not broken, just bent._  
_And we can learn to love again._

_Finn:  
Oh, we can learn to love again._

_Rachel  
Oh, we can learn to love again._

_Finn:  
Oh, oh. _

_Finn and Rachel:  
That we're not broken, just bent.  
And we can learn to love again._

"Kurt and I are showing Tina around NYADA today," Rachel said, finally breaking the silence, though still with her back turned on Finn's.

Finn clenched his fists and curled his toes with his eyes still fixed on his nightstand. "Just Tina?"

"Well… I guess Quinn too." She bit her lip and took a deep breath, but she had to keep her conscience clean after all she had been through in the last weeks. "And Blaine."

"Oh."

Finn's interjection was supposed to fake surprise, but all he got out of his mouth was a sound filled with distrust and recognition of Rachel's predictability.

"Are you okay with it?" Rachel asked while she eventually flipped over.

He shrugged, still hiding his face from Rachel. "I guess."

"Maybe we should talk later, you know? Get things… clear perhaps?"

"Sure." Dry. Very dry. "Can you do me a favor though?" he asked after a few seconds of awkwardness. "When you talk to Blaine, tell him something for me, would you?"

* * *

It was a busy morning in that Off-Broadway theater. Last rehearsal sessions, all the company present except for the head writer, Finn Hudson. However, the show had to go on, and so it did, pretty smoothly indeed.

In the middle of the stage, Jesse St. James stood under the burning spotlights, with all the back-up dancers and his co-lead by his side, about to perform the final number of the first act.

_[Impossible - James Arthur]_

_Jesse:  
I remember years ago  
someone told me I should take  
caution when it comes to love.  
I did._

_And you were strong and I was not._  
_My illusion, my mistake._  
_I was careless, I forgot._  
_I did._

_And now when all is done_  
_there is nothing to say._  
_You have gone and so effortlessly._  
_You have won._  
_You can go ahead, tell them._

_Tell them all I know now._  
_Shout it from the roof tops._  
_Write it on the sky line._  
_All we had is gone now._

_Tell them I was happy_  
_and my heart is broken._  
_All my scars are open._  
_Tell them what I hoped would be_  
_impossible, impossible,_  
_impossible, impossible._

All the dancers paired up behind him and Santana, who were dancing slowly together. Sorrow in Jesse's eyes, clandestine winks from his co-lead to her woman.

_Jesse:  
Falling out of love is hard.  
Falling for betrayal is worse.  
Broken trust and broken hearts.  
I know, I know._

_And thinking all you need is there._  
_Building faith on love and words._  
_Empty promises will wear._  
_I know, I know._

_Jesse and Santana:  
And now when all is done  
there is nothing to say.  
And if you're done  
with embarrassing me, _

_Jesse:  
on your own  
you can go ahead tell them._

_Jesse with the company backing up:  
Tell them all I know now.  
Shout it from the roof tops.  
Write it on the sky line.  
All we had is gone now._

_Tell them I was happy_  
_and my heart is broken._  
_All my scars are open._  
_Tell them what I hoped would be_  
_impossible, impossible,_  
_impossible, impossible._

_Jesse:  
I remember years ago  
someone told me I should take  
caution when it comes to love.  
I did._

For a second he was standing alone and the music stopped. No Santana. No no one. His eyes closing, and a tear running down his cheek as he clenched his fists.

_Jesse:  
Tell them all I know now.  
Shout it from the roof tops.  
Write it on the sky line.  
All we had is gone now._

_Tell them I was happy_  
_and my heart is broken._  
_All my scars are open._  
_Tell them what I hoped would be_  
_impossible, impossible,_  
_impossible, impossible._

_Impossible._

When he opened his eyes, he was totally out of the choreography. Six steps apart from Santana, one inch from falling off the stage. Shelby frowned and dismissed the rehearsal, but Jesse ran backstage before the director could catch him.

"Seriously, stop," he mumbled between tears to Santana Lopez while she chased him. The whole company was staring, watching the lead of their play break down while the Lima Heights diva tried to comfort him.

He was definitely faster than her. And she knew that a broken new-gay was not an easy prey to catch. So once she agreed with herself that she was going nowhere trying to grab his arm, she resorted to tripping him up.

Jesse fell hard onto the floor of the hallway where all the dressing rooms where. Thankfully there was nobody else around to watch him have a taste of cold Off-Broadway tile.

"Never run away from me. You are the pain in the ass here, I am the one who gets to storm out," Santana said as she sat next to him, sliding down the wall slowly while Jesse recomposed himself and moved to sit against the opposite wall of the hallway.

Jesse didn't say anything. No sound came out of his mouth. Not even the slightest weep. He just rolled his red eyes while tears streamed down his face. In complete and rigorous silence. Almost solemn.

Had Santana ever known she would end up therapizing one of the historical New Directions' nemesis, she would definitely have asked Quinn for a ride the day of Finn and Rachel's no-wedding after Regionals. Anyway, former evil people have to team up from time to time. The spirit of the guild and so on. "He hit you hard, didn't he?"

Another eyeroll. Another plate of silence in reply.

"Bitch, you fell deep and good." Santana understood what it was like to see the one you love and not to be able to say anything to convince them that loving you is the best investment they can make in their whole life. She recognized Jesse's pain. She had felt it. Though being emotionally kidnapped by Blaine Anderson was a phenomenon she couldn't conceive completely. Growing up in a neighborhood where half of the GDP is based on the drug dealing industry tends to make you blame narcotics for every weird shit you see. "Do you know why your suited and Berry will never work out? Besides the ridiculous genetics their Eskimo offspring will suffer."

Jesse shook his head and sighed, feeling his brain as numb as his heart to do any thinking at all.

"Blaine is not Rachel's first love. Finn is."

"She picked Blaine over Finn on that desk at prom, or that doesn't count either?" His words were rough and his voice broken.

"Asshole, it's called unresolved sexual tension. It had to blow in any moment." She giggled when she realized what she had just said. "Either way she was the one to blow or just give a handy."

Jesse chuckled weakly. Nothing like a gross jape to make a depressed man in love smile. "Your theory is pure crap, with or without blowjobs."

"Blowjobs make it definitely funnier, you can't deny that. But my point here is that Rachel will never choose Blaine while her first love is there. For Christ's sake, they live together. We all live together. There's no moving on from that mass of lard possible."

"Alright, I give that to you," Jesse answered as he dried his eyes with his still shaky hands. "But according to that rule, how can I win over Hummel? Or even Rachel."

Santana sighed. She was in the middle of that obscenely overdimensioned romantic polygon. Not an easy place to stand in. "It's not the very first person you are with or you think you love. The thing is that Finn opened Rachel's eyes to life in a way no one had ever done before. Among other stuff of Rachel's, but we're not going to go down there. It's a very dark place. I'm sure." She made a pause to shiver at the bizarre thought of a vajayjay singing 'Don't Rain On My Parade' while using the shower head as a microphone during a bath. And that's how an image can ruin an anthem for the rest of our lives. Sorry. "Blaine did that for you. He is your first in that, no matter all the shit you give us about being ambiguous in the show business. You might have had popped that white tight ass of yours all the times you make up, but Frodo is your first. The same way I did half of the football team back in my junk days but Brittany is my one."

"Do you realize you're just telling me what I already know? That the road ahead is just me crying over Blaine because he revolved my life while I didn't because Rachel went before?"

"I'm telling you, my dear stupid ass, though you don't get to win while Berry is singing her solos and making wineglasses burst with her belting in front of Frodo's floor-level eyes, he doesn't get to win either. You two are in the same place. Two losers in love with someone who'll never love them back fully."

"Seriously, you're not helping at all."

Santana stood up, wondering whether Jesse was as slow as Blaine's growth or she had lost her touch of being clear and straight. Correction: just clear. Being straight is something she lost a long time ago. "Sadistic people like all of us get tired too. We don't know why the fuck we get into the shit and, at one marvelous and undetermined point, we say 'oh to hell with all this crap' and turn our lives around. Do the math. Who's going to get tired of not being with the solo hoarder of their life before? The shiny ones who have been heartbroken for a whole year, the ones that smash mirrors with their superbowties or you, who got him laid into bed two weeks ago? Congrats, bitch, you run first."

* * *

"I don't know exactly why you called me in this early, but I guessed it would be to have an unnecessary rehearsal for our epic 'we made it' party." Blaine Anderson was glowing when he kissed Rachel Berry hello on the cheek once she walked into one of the auditoriums of NYADA.

Rachel had walked down the black stairs down to the stage far from thinking of a song right there. It might have been early in the morning, but she knew that Blaine would come anytime she required for an alleged 'pre-tour talk without Kurt repeating the world fabulous about every baton he found around the school'. Anyhow, she didn't leave Blaine hanging with his enthusiasm and smiled back at the boy's eagerness.

"I was thinking Katy. Very appropriate for us. You don't mind re-doing songs, right? I mean, we have pretty much done them all."

"He is so cute when he's happy," Rachel thought to herself as Blaine went on and on and on and hell on with his gibberish about 00's pop divas. "And he is happy, I see." The wound he got by punching that mirror had practically healed by then. The scar was there though. Another scar to match the ones he was trying to hide behind his always-welcoming smile. "We are here. That's what I see. He is happy because we are here together. Because I have asked him to meet me and that's all he needs to be happy. He loves me."

Rachel blinked, and with that she came back to reality. "We have to talk," she said, in an attempt to bring back her focus.

"S-Sure. I guess we should talk after the whole graduation thing, so… Here we are, aren't we?" Blaine just couldn't stop repeating to himself (and to the world) that he was in New York, attending NYADA next semester with Rachel Berry. He arranged his Spears, Pink, Xtina and Perry music sheets and put them aside on the piano. "You and Finn. Everything alright, I guess."

He was judging from the fact that Rachel had called him from her apartment with Finn and that it was his voice telling Shelby on his phone that he couldn't be at the theater that day. He wanted to think that they had fixed it all and the gang could live happily ever after. Or at least for four years or so. Though no one but Rachel had talked to him after the whole exposure thing. Rachel might be the whore of Babylon, but he had an unknown number of inches of stiff meat of blame too.

"I think we'll survive this, yeah. Things are rough and sort of uncomfortable but… tonight we'll talk it over with more calmly than yesterday." Her tone of voice was kind of broken. Most definitely sad. There was melancholy in her words. Regret, for sure. "But I haven't called you to sing, Blaine. There's something I forgot and people keep bringing back to me."

Blaine frowned. He wasn't following her, but he intuited trouble and drama, though he never used to avoid them. "Rachel, what are you talking about?"

"Sebastian told me you are not who I think you are."

"Sebastian is hurt, I get that, but…" He chuckled. "Rachel, I think I've been pretty clear about me and what's going on between us lately."

"Blaine, I'm not kidding." And those words finally made the boy of the bowtie realize they were not handling a topic to joke about there. "What do they know I don't know?"

"They? Who are they exactly? Sebastian? Quinn?"

"Finn has told me to ask you a question."

A shiver ran down Blaine's spine. Things were not going to get pretty there. "Rach…"

Rachel's eyes turned inquiring, seeking Blaine's, sneaky and frightened. "You know who told Quinn that Finn and I were faking the break-up?"

That was it. Busted. It looked as if Little Blainey had forgotten about that little loose end he left untied while he was untying Berry's dress. "Yes." He didn't blush. He just kept avoiding Rachel's angry eyes.

"Tell me it wasn't you." Rachel bit her lip, harder than she should have. She started crying. Pure pain. Sour, pure, absolute pain at Blaine's lack of answer. "Blaine, tell me it wasn't you!"

He finally raised his gaze to find Rachel's eyes. He saw tears. Bright eyes reflecting the spotlights. "I…" For a moment, the idea of lying barefacedly to his best friend crossed his mind, but he guessed he had already done enough damage.

"Why?" Rachel was slowly walking backwards away from Blaine. Her expression denoted something aside from betrayal. There was disgust. "Why did you do it?!"

"I don't know!" Blaine covered his face with his hands, running his fingers through his gelled hair. "I lost it. I thought… I thought Quinn might help. She texted me all those times to tell me that she could help. That she was just like me. Another martyr. That we were in the same situation…"

"You sold me to that bitch!" she screamed. "She said she could help? Help who? Help you?! She only helps herself! She just wanted to bring me down and break Finn and me apart! And you were the one who helped her make…" She stopped for a second. Rachel lost her breath when the only logical explanation popped in her mind, because Blaine was definitely the kind of stupid silly boy who gets manipulated by a person who's openly known as psychologically dangerous. "She actually helped you." And tears ran down faster. "And you knew she was helping you."

"It's not what it looks like…"

"Shut up, Blaine!" Rachel Barbra Berry was known for her powerful voice, but that seemed like a roar capable of scaring away half of the savannah. "You really wanted me and Finn to break up! You did all of this just to…" And prom night came back to her. That dreadful Wednesday happened in a flash in her head. It all had led to that moment. She was deceived into that classroom. Lied upon that desk. Schemed out of her clothes. "You…" She finally broke down and turned around, rushing upstairs with all the answers she needed.

The picture was complete.

"Rachel!" Blaine called from the stage, but the girl kept on fleeing. "Oh my God." His eyes were wide open. Blaine was conscious of what he had done. He regretted telling Quinn about the charade the moment he pressed 'Send' but he wasn't expecting that development of events. He just wanted Rachel back in Lima. He hadn't planned anything. And even less what happened at prom.

But now things were that way. Blaine Anderson had moved to a city were one hundred percent of the people he knew despised him. Officially and irrevocably. The boy who came with a song under his arm had now lost it all.

_[Lost - Katy Perry]_

_Blaine:  
I'm out on my own again.  
Face down in the porcelain.  
Feeling so high but looking so low._

Rachel kept on running down the NYADA halls, seeking a breath of fresh air to wake her up from that slow-motion nightmare.

_Rachel:  
Party favors on the floor.  
Group of girls banging on the door.  
So many new fair-weather friends._

_Oh, oh, oh…_

_Blaine and Rachel:  
Have you ever been so lost?  
Known the way and still so lost?_

Blaine remained there, upon that stage, singing a sad song he wasn't looking forward to when he woke up with a voice message from Rachel that morning.

_Blaine:  
Caught in the eye of a hurricane.  
Slowly waving goodbye like a pageant parade.  
So sick of this town pulling me down, oh…_

_Rachel:  
My mother says I should come back home but  
can't find the way 'cause the way is gone.  
So if I pray am I just sending words into outer space?_

_Blaine and Rachel:  
Have you ever been so lost?  
Known the way and still so lost?_

_Rachel:  
Another night waiting for someone  
to take me home._

Rachel took the first free cab she saw. Home. Home was what she needed the most. Home with her man.

_Blaine:  
Have you ever been so lost?_

_Rachel:  
Is there a light?  
Is there a light…_

_Blaine and Rachel:  
at the end of the road?_

_Blaine:  
I'm pushing everyone away  
'cause I can't feel this anymore!  
Feel this anymore…_

They had had those fights many times before. But their key was…

_Rachel:  
Have you ever been so lost?_

…that they always made up, cried it all out and laughed. But not that day.

_Blaine:  
Known the way and still so lost…_

_Blaine and Rachel:  
Another night waiting for someone  
to take me home.  
Have you ever been so lost?!_

Have you ever been so lost?

"Finny?" Rachel called weakly when she walked into her apartment, with her eyes still swollen. And in fact she blamed her red hurting eyes when she was shocked by the 6' figure standing next to her man in their living room. "I didn't know we were expecting visitors." She tried to compose herself, drying her tears discretely and/or faking an allergy attack.

"Oh, I'm not visiting, I'm moving in," Noah Puckerman said as he sat down on the couch and put his boots upon the coffee table. "Change of coast, unfinished business… you know?" He smiled to his hostess.

Rachel turned to Finn, who shrugged as if he hadn't even had the chance to tell his bro that it was not a good moment to crash to chase after his crazy blonde with a Finchel Armageddon going on, but… that's what friends are for, right?

* * *

"Mr. Shimmy. So nice of you to drop by." Cassandra July, clad in her black singlet and high pony tail smiled fakely at Kurt when he passed by the open door of the former Broadway bitch's class.

Kurt, who was giving a tour of the school to Quinn and Tina (and theoretically Blaine and Rachel, but, as usual, they were out of sight doing some super secret private thing that could be now identified with the performances of the amatory arts), was forced to walk into the classroom.

It was crowded with senior students who apparently didn't have anything to do or dance about. They were just forming a circle around the teacher while she told off a sweet, innocent, shiny freshman.

The other two girls followed Kurt kind of scared. Well, we are talking here about the Quinn of Hells (pun intended) and Tina Self-Manufactured-Ego Cohen-Chang. So maybe scared is not the way. Let's just say ready for a plausible paw fight.

"Yes, Mrs. July," he replied with his head down. If Kurt Hummel had learned something during his first year attending the New York Academy of Dramatic Arts was that: first, against all odds not a place for warmers; and second, Cassandra July is not a bitch you want to mess with. And if you can't win her over, you sure don't want to wake the dragon.

She walked around Kurt's companions. Her tap shoes echoing in the room, where the only sound besides that disturbingly slow clack-clack was the whispering of the upperclassmen making figurative popcorn before the bloodshed about to happen there. "And who do we have here?" Cassie asked as if a serial killer needed introductions before she tore her victims' limbs apart.

"Tina Cohen-Chang." As she introduced herself, she took a step forward, giving an impression of fearless girl unafraid of any kind of frontal collision. "I am…"

"I know who you are." Cassandra snapped her fingers in Tina's face, to which the Asian diva replied with a shocked expression. "You are that mentally-disturbed girl who thought dissociating her personality was a good choice for an audition. 'One Day More' by yourself? That's not an interpretative challenge. It's you changing from one vocal register to another in every single verse. And don't make me talk about you switching faces from Samantha Barks suffering from rib-cage compression to Hugh Jackman's constipation. Thankfully you didn't go all Anne Hathaway and shaved your head right there."

Quinn chuckled as the other students, save Kurt, booed and laughed at the maxi combo of hazing their teacher had just performed flawlessly. And the blonde's amusement didn't go unnoticed by Cassie.

"What about you? You find it funny that your friend has a psychological disorder?" July turned her back on Tina to focus on the teen bitch mother, who looked right back into her soon-to-be mentor's eyes. More than fearless, she would seem soulless, actually.

"I've been diagnosed by a true doctor. Manic-depressive bipolarity kind. And the thing about it is that I might find it either funny or sad enough to cut my wrists in a pool filled with Chardonnay while singing opera." Her grin was defiant, and that wasn't something Cassandra July liked.

The teacher grinned back. Her face was very few inches apart from Quinn's. She raised an eyebrow. "Introductions made, now do you know who I am, Mrs. Haloperidol?"

"Cassandra July. Dance teacher and former Broadway performer. Rumor has it you lost it during one of your shows and assaulted the audience, so I guess we are going to get along well trading with antipsychotics. The counselor at my high school had OCD, but I'm sure you and I will have more in common."

Cassie chuckled and stepped back, turning to the class she was supposed to be teaching. They were absolutely muted after seeing how their teacher's pun backfired. "You heard that? Girl has some guts. I want you all to remember her name and after you get your diplomas next week, come back every single week and check out how… What was your name, again, Shimmy's friend?"

"Quinn Fabray," she replied sourly, with a grimace denoting disgust towards Cassie's 'Listerine' breath.

"I want you all to remember Quinn Fabray's name, because she's going to be a milestone in the history of our everything-but-humble school. Let's give a round of applause for Lady Quinn Fabray because she's going to show us all that she has some behind all that barking at respectable people. Woo!" She started clapping her hands up in the air, soon to be joined by the rest of the class, who dared not defy the orders of a passive-aggressive raging Cassie July.

The teacher hit play on the base of her iPod and music started playing. Everybody had lined against a wall behind the teacher, who stood two steps ahead of her class, but leaving Quinn (and her two friends) enough space to put a show that would have been mocked for centuries.

Quinn turned around, nervously as the lights went down, to Kurt and Tina. The boy quickly hurried out of the room. "Gotta go to the ladies', sorry, girl. You've woken the beast, you get eaten," he adduced.

"You better back me up in this," Quinn told Tina with her crazy eyes.

"I'm Team Berry in this. You are crazy and dangerous. I'm out."

As Tina tried to flee along with Kurt, Quinn made an offer she couldn't refuse. "And for that exact reason you're going to help me out or I'll drag you down so hard you'll be rotting under the corpses of the whole Team Berry's egos by mid September. And hell if I know how to make a wannabe-diva cry." She was pointing her index finger fiercely toatwards the not-so-fearless girl, who finally gave in to the threat and faced the unfriendly.

"Enough chatter. Music's been playing for an hour!" Cassandra yelled, wandering up and down the lines of her army of arselickers. Very gladiatorial indeed.

_[Fame - Irene Cara]_

_Quinn:  
Baby, look at me  
and tell me what you see.  
You ain't seen the best of me yet.  
Give me time, I'll make you forget the rest._

_Tina:  
I got more in me.  
And you can set it free.  
I can catch the moon in my hand.  
Don't you know who I am?  
Remember my name!_

The formation of students broke to join the girls at July's command. She wanted a moral carnage, but a good show too.

_NYADA students:  
Fame._

_Quinn and Tina:  
I'm gonna live forever.  
I'm gonna learn how to fly._

_NYADA students:  
High._

_Quinn and Tina:  
I feel it coming together.  
People will see me and cry._

_NYADA students:  
Fame._

_Quinn and Tina:  
I'm gonna make it to heaven.  
Light up the sky like a flame._

_NYADA students:  
Fame._

_Quinn and Tina:  
I'm gonna live forever.  
Baby, remember my name._

_NYADA students:  
Remember.  
Remember.  
Remember.  
Remember.  
Remember.  
Remember.  
Remember.  
Remember._

As the whole class danced around them, Quinn and Tina got kind of shy, shoulder to shoulder in the middle of the room, as the teacher took a running start against the wall and approached them, joining with her best and smoothest moves.

_Cassandra:  
Baby, hold me tight.  
'Cause you can make it right.  
You can shoot me straight to the top.  
Give me love and take all I've got to give._

_Baby, I'll be tough._  
_Too much is not enough, no._  
_I'll grab your heart 'til it breaks._  
_Uh I got what it takes!_

_NYADA students:  
Fame._

_Cassandra and Quinn:  
I'm gonna live forever.  
I'm gonna learn how to fly._

_NYADA students:  
High._

_Cassandra and Tina:  
I feel it coming together.  
People will see me and cry._

_NYADA students:  
Fame._

_Cassandra, Quinn and Tina:  
I'm gonna make it to heaven.  
Light up the sky like a flame._

_NYADA students:  
Fame._

_Cassandra, Quinn and Tina:  
I'm gonna live forever.  
Baby, remember my name._

_NYADA students:  
Remember.  
Remember.  
Remember.  
Remember.  
Remember.  
Remember.  
Remember._

_Cassandra:  
Fame!_

_Cassandra, Quinn and Tina:  
I'm gonna make it to heaven.  
Light up the sky like a flame._

_Cassandra with Cassandra, Quinn and Tina:  
Fame!_

_Cassandra, Quinn and Tina:  
I'm gonna live forever.  
Baby, remember my name._

A scream interrupted the performance. It didn't take place in the classroom, but it was loud enough to echo across the walls and be heard above the singing and dancing of July's class. She turned off her iPod and headed to the hallway, but she crashed into Kurt at the threshold.

Kurt was a mess. He was shaking, his eyes were red. Tears all over his face. He was the one who screamed, as Cassie, Quinn and Tina quickly identified. He was mumbling at the speed of light. A nervous-wrecking gibberish absolutely unintelligible for any of the presents. His face was so red it was clear he was having a panic attack that didn't allow him to breath.

Cassandra held the boy's hands, trying to calm him down and prevent him from falling to the ground. "What's going on, Kurt?!" she asked afraid. Kurt Hummel was not known for being the least expressive person in the world, but that was a reaction that would have concerned and startled even the ones used to his dramas and his hyping tendencies. "Kurt, calm down and tell us!"

Everybody had formed a circle around them, and Quinn and Tina had to elbow their way to their friend. Something terrible had to have happened for Kurt to be in such a loss of control.

When he saw the known faces, he tried to take a deep breath. "It's… Oh my God, it's horrible. I-In the bathroom. He's… Oh god." But he failed, though. He was not breathing at all. He choked and fainted. Thankfully there were enough people around him to catch him before he hit the floor under his senseless legs.

Then it all went black, after all the red he had just seen.

* * *

_[Toy Soldiers - Martika]_

The voices of the remaining New Directions, from the faraway Lima, echoed in a crowded waiting room of a hospital in the Big City.

_Joe, Marley, Rory and Sugar:  
Step by step.  
Heart to heart.  
Left right left.  
We all fall down  
like toy soldiers._

Rachel was sitting next to Finn, who held her hands in his. She was absolutely paralyzed. Back to the moment when she felt her life falling apart not so many days ago. But this time it wasn't hers the life at risk, and the risk was too real for her mind to process.

_Rachel:  
It wasn't my intention to mislead you.  
It never should have been this way.  
What can I say?_

Besides the words coming out of her mouth, the only movement in her body was the tears streaming down her face as she laid her head on Finn's shoulder.

_Rachel:  
It's true I did extent the invitation.  
I never knew how long you'd stay._

_Finn and Rachel:  
When you hear temptation call,  
it's your heart that takes, takes a fall._

Finn tried to dry Rachel's tears with his thumb, but she turned her face away, stood up and left her boyfriend hanging, unable to feel Finn's touch right then.

_Joe, Marley, Rory and Sugar:  
Won't you come out and play with me?_

Santana, leading Brittany and Tina, wandered up and down the room, just like Kurt, Jesse and Puck. The Lima Heights queen clenched her fists, knowing it all had gone too far.

_Santana with Brittany and Tina backing up:  
Step by step.  
Heart to heart.  
Left right left.  
We all fall down  
like toy soldiers._

Kurt couldn't help but cry and walk after his blackout. Cry and walk. Cry and walk with the fear of a doctor coming out to say that he was going to face the hardest moving on of his life.

_Kurt with Jesse and Puck backing up:  
Bit by bit.  
Torn apart.  
We never win,  
but the battle wages on  
for toy soldiers._

Finn, left behind by Rachel, couldn't take out of his mind how rough he had been to Blaine lately. With or without reason. How complicated things had been between them and between his girl as well. He recalled all the times he had wished Blaine disappeared from their lives. And shivered.

_Finn:  
It's getting hard to wake up in the morning.  
My head is spinning constantly.  
How can it be?_

The unable-to-face-tragedy Tina came back after all the makeovers. She just wasn't able to stand the atmosphere of the waiting room. She was supposed to be a tough bitch and not to let herself give in though. She headed to the door and opened it…

_Tina:  
How could I be so blind to this addiction?_

…finding out who had been carried to the hospital by her guilt to check the consequences of her games.

_Quinn:  
If I don't stop the next one's gonna be me._

Tina saw anything but remorse in Quinn's eyes and decided to take the high road, hold the blonde's hand and take her in with the rest of them.

_Quinn and Tina:  
Only emptiness remains._

Santana took Quinn's other hand, putting aside all the rivalry and the fights they had been through lately.

_Quinn and Santana:  
It replaces all,_

_Brittany, Quinn and Santana:  
all the pain._

So the Unholy Trinity stuck together through the hard times, as it had always been supposed.

_Joe, Marley, Rory and Sugar:  
Won't you come out and play with me?_

Rachel saw Blaine in one of the emergency rooms with too many pairs of gloved hands on him. The beeping of all the machines connected to his body deafened her.

_Rachel with Brittany, Finn, Kurt, Jesse, Quinn, Puck and Tina backing up:  
Step by step.  
Heart to heart.  
Left right left.  
We all fall down  
like toy soldiers._

The image of the doctors doing CPR to her best friend froze her on the window of the room.

_Rachel with Brittany, Finn, Kurt, Jesse, Quinn, Puck and Tina backing up:  
Bit by bit.  
Torn apart.  
We never win,  
but the battle wages on  
for toy soldiers._

She rested her head on the glass and kept on crying, but the staff drew the curtain since it wasn't something that girl should see.

_Blaine:  
You never win._

But somehow, he was there, as usual, beside her during the darkest hours. As he had been in every single bad moment of the past year.

_Rachel:  
Oh… _

_Blaine:  
Only emptiness remains.  
It replaces all, all the pain._

Blaine, like an angel dressed in white, took Rachel's hand, planted a kiss on her cheek and led the way back to the waiting room, though Rachel's feet where the only ones being actually dragged down the hallways.

_Joe, Marley, Rory and Sugar:  
Won't you come out and play with me?_

_Blaine with Brittany, Finn, Kurt, Jesse, Quinn, Puck and Tina backing up:  
Step by step.  
Heart to heart.  
Left right left.  
We all fall down  
like toy soldiers._

Rachel saw Quinn there, surrounded by all her loved ones. Or all the ones who once loved her, actually. They looked at each other and melted into a broken, teary, messy hug before Blaine's not-there eyes.

_Blaine with Brittany, Finn, Kurt, Jesse, Quinn, Puck and Tina backing up:  
Bit by bit.  
Torn apart.  
We never win,  
but the battle wages on (Rachel: Wages on!)  
for toy soldiers._

Quinn moved to Puck's arms as Rachel wrapped hers around the neck of a devastated Kurt Hummel. Blaine saw them both and smiled. Just smiled.

_Blaine with Brittany, Finn, Kurt, Jesse, Quinn, Puck and Tina backing up:  
Step by step. (Rachel: Oh!)  
Heart to heart.  
Left right left.  
We all fall down (Rachel: All fall down! All fall down!)  
like toy soldiers. _

_Blaine and Rachel with Brittany, Finn, Kurt, Jesse, Quinn, Puck and Tina backing up:  
Bit by bit.  
Torn apart.  
We never win,  
but the battle wages on  
for toy soldiers._

Rachel Barbra Berry looked over her friend's shoulder and saw Blaine Anderson fading away. Or so she imagined. One minute he was there with her, one blink and he wasn't. One minute her life was full and complete, one blink and…

Gone.

* * *

**Just keep moving on. Just move forward.**


End file.
